


Immovable, unbreakable

by Cards_Slash



Series: Immovable Series [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dubious Consent, M/M, Mpreg, Omega Verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-02-27 07:55:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 31
Words: 137,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2685119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Altair has known since he was thirteen years old, the year he realized he was an omega, that his body was never going to be his own.  He thought he had overcome his own fate when Al Mualim agreed to allow him to stay on as an Assassin but even becoming the youngest Master Assassin ever did not save him.  Following the semi-failed mission at Solomon's Temple, Altair is <i>gifted</i> to Malik as a reward for his service.  Malik doesn't want Altair but he does not turn down the chance to show him his place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [坚如磐石](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8505058) by [lisanyao](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisanyao/pseuds/lisanyao)



> this is not a pleasant story. it deals with a lot of unhappy themes. it is not a pleasant love story. there will be little joy at first. it does get better, if you are patient. read with discretion.

Altair crouched at the edge of the building, long tips of the white robe brushing idly against the dust beneath him. The sun was a swollen knot of heat just over his right shoulder, making his shadow stretch out across the ground up the side of the building across the distance from him. The minute, mindless motions of the throwing knife moving across the back of his fingers (an unfortunate nervous habit he could not break) was only visible in the slight waver of his shadow’s elbow. He was waiting (frequently waiting) for the target he’d trailed through the city for two days to start on his daily circle; waiting for his chance to slip down and follow the man around the isolated bend and slip a sharp blade through his ribs. 

It was one of the least eventful and exciting assassinations he’d undertaken since he’d been given the title of Master Assassin (despite near bloody protest opposing the promotion). His legs were tired from crouching and the sweat slick down his back was enough to make him consider forgetting patience and hunting the man down at his home. His pretty young wife would not prove to be any difficulty (unless she screamed) and once dispatched, Altair could return to more entertaining activities (such as watching grass grow). He had nearly resolved to jump down and seek out his target in a more direct manner when the sound of an approaching animal distracted him.

It was a mangy dog, filthy with dust and bony from lack of food. There were others following at its heels. A band of three or four that were scenting the air with that singular, foamed-mouth focus. United by the promise of a mate, the three must have spent the morning in pursuit. Now that the female was in sight, the fight began with a wild snarl and sharp-white-teeth bared. The bitch was watching with some interest, growled only when one of the males tried to break away from the fight to get to her. 

Altair was so distracted in watching the bloody warfare that he’d missed his target’s quiet arrival. The man’s raucous laugh was what alerted him to his presence, that pleased-way he nodded approvingly at the antics of wild animals as he paused a moment to see the outcome. It was not the largest animal that won (in the end), but the meanest. The lone victor, smug with victory, snarled at Altair’s target for having the gall to stand too close. It was simply too easy to step off the roof, take one stride forward and push the sharpened blade through the man’s chest. His slack-jawed surprise was pinked at the edge from the aggravating way he’d smiled at the dogs. The aroused approval in his eyes at the bitch’s useless growls and yelps turned into cold shock as his eyes rolled in their watery sockets to look at Altair’s face (obscured as it was by the hood). His dirty hands clutched at Altair’s arms, slid across the tight sleeves and caught on the red sash at his waist. 

His mouth went red with a sudden cough, a splatter of blood outlining his yellow teeth and spilling over his thin bottom lip in a long line of spittle. There was only a matter of seconds before the man’s heart (cut through as it was) gave up in defeat, until the blood in his veins went still and his lungs seized and his brain (starved for vital life) went dull and dark. But those seconds were long enough for a dozen thoughts-and-questions to cross the man’s face as his loose jaws worked around to saying _anything_. No sound came, the man never so much as managed a groan before Altair stepped back and left his body in a crumpled pile against the crumbling wall of a building. He plucked a feather out of his pouch and ran it across the flow of blood out of the wound in his chest. When he straightened again, the dogs’ whining at his back made him look. The pitiful look of their rutting, the bitch knocked forward with the male’s teeth clenched at her neck, set a sneer on his face that even this monotonous victory could not eclipse. 

\--

“It is done,” Altair said when he was safely back in the bureau. He dropped the feather on the long counter and waited for the aged-and-withering Rafiq to take notice of it. It was a formality that he detested (as he detested most formalities). This Rafiq, never an assassin, had knotted knuckles and an old shake to his limbs that ranked him among the most useless of men.

“Curious, I did not hear bells,” the knotted-old-man said to him. He looked up from the poor map he had been attempting to make. The lines that should have been smooth rattled by his unsteady hands. There was a crooked, toothless, smile on his face when he dared to look at Altair’s face. “You should be grateful for your youth.”

It was, perhaps, the most curious (and hollow) advice that Altair had ever received. “I am leaving,” Altair said.

“Ah,” the Rafiq interrupted, “no. A message came while you were out this morning. You have been assigned a task by Al Mualim.”

“Where is it?” Altair demanded.

“It has come and gone again,” the Rafiq said. A rough cough seized up in his chest. He tipped forward as the effort shook his body so hard it seemed as if he would simply vibrate apart. “Malik and his brother,” the Rafiq said at last. He noticed the curl of Altair’s lip at the mention of the name and made an approving sound—not so unlike the triumphant chuckle of the man Altair had just killed—“He thought as much of you as you do of him.”

“I require food if I am staying,” Altair said. He went to the small table at the head of the room to wait for the limping, shaking, bent old man to bring him something. 

\--

The water from the fountains was blissfully cool to his throat when he cupped it up to his mouth. His gut was twisting with nausea (at the thought of _Malik_ surely) that had started shortly after he’d caught the smell of dates from a slight breeze. The meager (but sufficient) food he’d been given by the Rafiq had threatened to make a startling reappearance. He’d managed to drop back into the bureau and pour water across the back of his neck. (The only useful advice he’d ever been given, years ago, by a weathered old woman with a horde of unruly children.) His hands were white-knuckled-around the rim of the fountain, his eyes closed and his mouth open as he breathed through the tightening claws in his stomach. There was a short, perilous moment, when he was sure that he was going to lose the battle. The taste of bile and the too-hot rise in his throat was thick and insistent. 

His weapons were resting in a neat pile inside of the bureau (under the unwatchful gaze of the Rafiq) so there was less to hinder him as he pulled at the bindings of his clothes. He stripped down to his bare chest and clenched his teeth against the surge of nausea. The water was cold on his hot skin, (felt almost like it was sizzling) and he tipped his head down to pour it through his hair. It fell around his face, licking across his cheeks and catching the corners of his mouth. 

A crash drew his attention to the side. The bent old Rafiq was standing there with one hand outstretched and a pot rattling in place at his feet. “I’ll never understand pride,” the man said. “You have it in abundance.” Then his foot kicked the pot closer to him. “Go on then. You’ll feel better.” 

But anger came in the place of sickness, suffusing his whole body with calm. His skin was flinching from the water dripping out of his hair. His feet against the ground made a shuffling noise as he turned and shoved the pot back toward the man who offered it. Altair did not need to look at his reflection in the water to know how sallow his skin must have looked or how his eyes had gone all red-and-pink around the edges. The disastrous lack of control had flushed his shoulders red (no doubt) but the anger came like a cool blanket. He straightened to his full height. “You will not speak of this.”

The Rafiq looked at him with sorrow (not pity) and inclined his head. He did not take the pot but shuffled back out of the room. When he was gone, Altair closed his eyes and tried to unclench his fists but they would not yield. 

\--

Malik (and his kid brother) returned before sunset when the ancient Rafiq’s creaking bones were set to shut the bureau for the night. They slid in between the gaps in the grate, the younger one with an attempt at coordination that seemed to pain him and the older with a snake’s sly slither. Kadar hit the ground on his feet, failed to compensate for the landing and fell backward onto his ass with a groan of noise that sounded oh-so-amused. But Malik landed on his feet, his knees bent to absorb the impact and the rest of his body contract into a tight knot until he’d scanned the area to be sure it was safe.

“What crime have I been accused of in my absence?” Altair asked. He had pulled apart the cushions and carpets to make a comfortable (enough) bed in the corner far removed from the pile he’d left behind for the other two. Even now, Malik had caught sight of him and was straightening up with a hissing-frown on his face while Kadar crossed his legs in front of himself with loose joints and a sweet smile. 

“Many,” Malik said.

“Why would you have been accused of a crime?” Kadar asked.

“Are you not a punishment?” Altair said back.

The boy (still a boy, perhaps always a boy, always so bright with childish energy) considered this with an uncertain twitch of his eyebrows before looking at his brother. It was a confusing look, caught between accusing Malik of being the punishment and asking Malik why either of them could be considered a punishment. He settled on shrugging as he got to his feet and dusted himself off. 

Malik was not so forgiving. “You are the punishment.” Then he pulled a slip of paper from one of his pouches and held it out to him. Altair looked at it but did not take it. “We are to find and retrieve this treasure.”

“Is it heavy?” Altair asked. 

“How should I know?” Malik demanded.

“It must be heavy if it’s to take three of us,” Altair said. He smiled at the dawning anger on Malik’s face (perhaps the only time the man’s face was attractive to him: all puffed and red with constipated fury). Altair reclined back into the comfortable next of pillows he’d made for himself. 

“It’s guarded,” Kadar said from the side. He had already removed his weapons (considerably less than his brother’s) and had pulled his hood away from his face. Sweat had soaked his hair and left it crunchy and tight to his skull. “We spent the day gathering information and we’ve located it in Solomon’s Temple but it is guarded by a small band of Templars. Their leader is a giant.”

“He is not,” Malik said.

“Compared to you, everyone is,” Altair offered. 

Kadar had always been small, always slim and frail looking. The sort of child that everyone expected to reveal himself as an omega (a _breeder_ ) at the onset of maturity. Even Malik had expected it, possibly still expected it, but Kadar had persisted in his slight, smallish state with no such signs. The boy smiled again with a little laugh caught between his teeth but Malik turned his head far enough to sneer at his brother. 

“We have located the treasure. We can attack tomorrow, whenever you are prepared.” Then Malik was swishing out of the room with an irritated turn and the clink-of weapons. Kadar followed his brother toward the promise of food. Altair shifted his body so he could hear-them through the open doorway and see them when they returned.

\--&\--

The road from Masayf had been long but pleasant. Marked primarily by an incessant noise from his left side, the details of the journey had already faded out. Jerusalem lay before them as a great din of noise, the motion of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of bodies moving throughout the city. The smell of it was an unpleasant stench after so many days of fresh air and freedom. 

“If he has not already finished his mission, I think I’ll ask if I can go with him and watch,” Kadar was saying. (Talking, still talking, always _talking_.) He had come to a short stop, knocking his body against the back of Malik’s left arm before he noticed how close they’d gotten. His voice, (still high for a man his age), was caught in confident admiration.

“Why?” Malik asked.

“He is a master assassin, Malik.” Yes, a feat that surpassed any others of his age. The best of all of the boys that had grown together, the best of fifteen years of novices. “The youngest ever in the history of our Brotherhood. I want to be like him.”

Malik looked at his brother, caught with a snide rebuttal between his teeth. “There are better men to aspire to become, Kadar.”

This offended his brother, brought that pouting lip and the reproachful look in his light eyes. Kadar had been too spoiled as a child. (And by _whom?_ ) It showed in his petulant frown and the notion that he knew better than those who tried to help him. Whatever his brother might have said to him (about how he disagreed) curdled into a humming sound before he pointed forward. “Should we hide in the scholars, Malik?”

So they went, with quick steps to fall in line with the scholars who entered the city without drawing so much as a sighing glance from the guards. Kadar was impatient at his side as Malik kept measured steps in the center of the group. He would have broken away from them as soon as they were beyond the gates. (Unaware or unconcerned about the guards that frequently watched the incoming crowds for rash actions.) They walked until they could safely leave the group without arousing suspicion. 

“Say nothing and stay close,” Malik said to him. 

\--

By the time they reached bureau, the city had come to full life. People were out in the streets attending to the business of life. Kadar had knocked into a woman carrying a pot who screamed in alarm and brought the unwanted attention of a nearby guard. Malik had dragged his brother around a quick corner and up a short ladder to cross a dozen rooftops until they happened into a garden. His brother’s pink face and reddened ears showed his embarrassment and his lips mumbled a silent apology as they were obliged to stay still and wait for the guards to lose interest in finding them. 

They escaped and continued on to the bureau across the rooftops, dropped through the grate without a second incident. Altair (if he had even bothered to stay in the bureau at all) was already gone. Haydar, the Rafiq, greeted them with a wave of his gnarled old hand and the kind offer of a meal.

Kadar was eager to accept the food, brightly thankful when he was given a plate. He excused himself to the table at the end of the room. Haydar smiled after him, clearly pleased to be appreciated, but with that same lightness in his eyes that the other elders had. “How old?” Haydar asked.

“Fifteen,” Malik said. It was an attempt at a dismissal of the conversation. 

Haydar’s fuzzy eyebrows knotted together as he looked at Malik with confusion. “No symptoms at all?” was what he said. His hands were pressed to the wood of the long counter, his swollen knuckles knocking absently over the dust and ink stains. The wonder on his face was the same as the amazement in the faces of the many instructors that had patiently waited for maturity to prove Kadar to be an omega. Malik was (acutely) aware of the wager that followed Kadar around, the many men who still believed he would prove to be an omega. The fact that it had not yet happened confounded many (Malik included). 

“No,” Malik said after a pause. “Is Altair still in the city?”

“Ah,” Haydar said. He managed to look away from Kadar (difficult as it was) to focus on Malik again. “He was here this morning and he is gone now.”

“When will he return?”

Haydar laughed at the question. His bowed back straightened as he threw his head back and the sudden sound made Kadar look over at them with concern. His mouth was crammed full of food when he asked what was funny. Haydar’s gray-old-face was flushed with amusement when he shook his head and spread his arms. “Surely, you know no man can say when or if Altair will return. He took a feather when he went so I am sure to get one back wet with the blood of his target. If he chooses to deliver it in person remains to be seen.”

“I thought you had to return them in person,” Kadar said from behind him.

“You do,” Malik answered flatly. He was not amused or endeared toward the disrespect Altair showed for their traditions. (He was not amused or endeared toward anything about Altair, lease of all his baby brother’s obvious affection for the omega.) “I have been sent by Al Mualim to meet him so that he could join us in a mission.”

Haydar inclined his head. “Then we will hope that he returns. Listen for the bells, you will know he is still in the city when they ring.” 

“Carelessness,” Malik said. 

Haydar shrugged his shoulders. “Altair cannot move with the same anonymity as you, Malik. It may have surprised many when he proved to be an omega as a child but it would surprise nobody now. We are all animals and we are all aware of potential mates when we see them.”

“All the more reason he should not have been allowed to become an assassin,” Malik snarled. He noted the raise of Haydar’s eyebrow and then cleared his throat. It was not his place to tell the Rafiq what should have been allowed (or not allowed). “My brother and I will investigate our mission further, with your permission.” He pulled the picture and the vague details he’d been given and hand them to Haydar for his inspection.

“Yes, of course,” Haydar said after he’d skimmed through the writing. “If Altair returns, I will keep him here until you can speak to him.” 

“Thank you,” Malik said.

\--

“Why do you hate him?” Kadar asked quietly. He was sitting on the bench at Malik’s side, eyes unfocused and stare blank as they waited to catch a whisper of the Templars and the location of their hidden treasure. His brother (novice that he was) regarded the whole exercise as a waste of their time when other men had come before and discovered Solomon’s Temple was the (most likely) location. Malik looked at him with a frown as Kadar blinked back into focusing, looking at Malik without the respect (and fear) that other men afforded him. “Do not deny that you do.”

“I wouldn’t,” Malik said. “Is there not enough proof that he rose to his rank solely due to the favoritism shown to him by Al Mualim? When has he ever shown any greater competence than others? He has no respect for our creed and no place in our Brotherhood. He is an omega and should be a happy wife and mother, not a high ranking assassin.”

Kadar considered that, picked at the length of the robe across his knee. He said, “do you hate him because he is of a higher rank and skill than you and does not deserve it or do you hate him because he is a skilled assassin when you’d rather he be your wife?”

Malik laughed at the thought. “You wish misery on me, making suggestions like that.”

“I’ve heard you,” Kadar said (so very softly). “You are not so unlike the other men who forget I am there. You sit with them and talk about the things that you would like to do with an omega like Altair.” It was an accusation spoken in an undertone. A strange thing to come from his brother who had never once managed to have the sense to be offended about anything. “You would take him as a wife.”

“I would take him to my bed,” Malik conceded. 

Kadar’s sound was a sarcastic acknowledgement of those words. He looked around the crowd that had yielded no results. “I do not think you’d emerge from that bed intact, brother.”

“It is a pleasure to know you think so lowly of me,” Malik said. Then he stood up, “we should move on.” Kadar was _ecstatic_ at the words, already on his feet before Malik even finished speaking them. 

\--

On a high perch, Malik listened to the loose talk of men discussing the exchanging of guards at Solomon’s Temple. Kadar was laying on the building behind him, eyes closed and ankles crossed. His lips were moving along with the conversation they were listening to. When the men parted ways (called in separate directions by the wants of food and company) Malik turned on the corner of the roof to look at Kadar.

The boy opened his eyes enough to smile at him. “There are four guards to watch for the treasure,” he said. “They will change at dawn and again at dusk. The man who they guard the treasure for is named Robert and he comes to inspect it this afternoon before dinner.” He was clearly pleased with himself.

“You are a lazy assassin,” Malik said.

“I have always been a lazy brother,” Kadar pointed out. “You do not complain at home.”

“This is not our home. You cannot rely on me to protect you here. You must protect yourself.” Malik pulled at him to get him over to a ladder. Kadar followed him with a sigh. “Do you have a better idea?”

“Have you seen Altair use a ladder?” (No, of course not. Ladders were for lesser men.)

“Have you seen Altair limping around Masyaf because he is too stupid to use the tools available to him?” Malik countered. “Perhaps you have seen him fall on his ass and be swarmed by a half dozen city guards? Or perhaps you have seen him crash into a booth and emerged covered with spices and rice? Have you seen the rash that appears on his face afterward? It swells.”

“I have not seen him use a ladder,” Kadar said stubbornly. But he followed Malik and lapsed into silence as they moved to another location in search of more information. 

\--

“He is a giant,” Kadar whispered against the back of Malik’s ear. His smaller body was curved around Malik’s left side as his bony chin bore into his shoulder. The weight and heat of him was an uncomfortable distraction. They were hidden around a shadowed corner, bored and hungry with hours of waiting, when Robert De Sable (flanked by a number of guards, one who had graciously given them information earlier that day) finally appeared along the path toward Soloman’s Temple. The man was a giant (but Malik would not admit to as much), towering over even the men at his side. His body was thick, his arms were heavy and his face was a gleaming white mask of superior hatred. 

Malik knocked his elbow into Kadar to silence him and they listened for any word from the man. But Robert, apparently not as careless as the men he employed, said nothing as he strode along the path. When he had faded from view (with no way to follow after him undetected), Kadar fell back against the building they had used as cover. The paleness of his cheeks was one of the many traits that earned him so many endearing glances from men (and women) just waiting for him to show as an omega. 

“We should endeavor to avoid him,” Malik said. A smart man was one who knew how to avoid a fight he did not need to have. “It should not be difficult. We only want the treasure.”

“Did you see him?” Kadar whispered.

Malik frowned.

“He was a giant.”

Malik stood up and left Kadar to mumble over the size of the man to himself. He was hungry and tired after a long day spent searching for more information. The most unpleasant task had yet to be completed. He was already mixing in with the crowd before Kadar caught up to him. His voice in an eager whisper when he said, “Altair will be there when we arrive.”

“We can only hope he is not.”


	2. Chapter 2

Night fell and the heat dissipated. Kadar slept with peaceful ease; the sort of sleep the young and the inexperienced enjoyed. Malik slept in fits, waking with a quake whenever a noise jolted him awake. One of the wretched lunatics was pacing outside of the bureau, raving about the moon in the sky. 

“Perhaps you should end his misery,” Altair said. There was a long space between the two of them, Malik safely tucked into his own corner as far away as he could get. But the gleam of his eyes caught the bright white of the moonlight whenever he looked toward the sound of the man’s hysterical screaming. 

“We do not kill the innocent,” Malik mumbled back. He wiggled until he’d found a comfortable position to lay in. Kadar objected with a wordless snorting-mumble and was still again. Malik made a great show of sleeping that was nearly convincing save for how his breathing was too measured and quiet. “You should sleep.”

“I find it difficult to sleep when I’m in danger,” Altair said back. It was more than he should have said. The satisfaction at watching Malik’s whole body tighten in objection was a short lived thrill of pleasure. 

“What imagined threat keeps you from sleeping?” Malik asked. And since he’d given up the pretense of sleeping, he sat up with his legs out in front of him and his shoulder’s hunched forward. His hair, barely definable in the dark, was a twist of peaks and valleys all around his head. “Afraid it will rain?”

Altair scoffed. His aversion to water was a well-worn joke at Masyaf, nearly as tired and aged as the poor Rafiq coughing in the interior of the bureau. “I have heard you speak often enough that I know the danger you present.”

It was Malik’s turn to scowl. His own sound of disbelief wasn’t as rude but full of air. “If you have heard me speak _of your kind_ , you would know I am no danger to _you_.”

Altair did not move, did not uncurl from the defensive position he’d assumed. “My kind,” he repeated. The weight of the words was still an unpleasant reminder of the scathing hatred that followed at his back. The stares and whispers that haunted his steps wherever he went. “I have heard you talk often and at length about where you think my kind belong, Malik. How easily would you sleep if I looked at your brother with the same eyes you use to look at me?”

In the darkness the noise Malik made could have been a snake’s leathery hiss, a sudden intake of breath across wet teeth. He did not move from his place but there was a shift in his posture that betrayed his opinion on that matter. The flash-burn of anger cooled into a soothing lull, he said, “but you cannot because you are only an omega.”

“An omega that outranks you.” But the words and the arbitrary safety they afforded him were only as good as Malik’s resolve to follow the rules given to him. The derision and the intent that he looked at Altair with were made of something far more primal than man-made loyalty. “And you believe you pose no danger to me.”

“Because I would see you put in your proper place?”

“Because you believe my _proper place_ is on my back beneath you with your teeth in my throat.” Because Malik was not the first nor the last to share the belief that omegas had no business anywhere but tucked into safe little homes. Omegas were _distractions_ to men that liked to think breeders were only objects to be lusted after and possessed.

Malik’s silence was hateful when his face was hidden by shadows. He made a short noise of air passing through his nose (at last). “You mistake me, Altair. If I were saddled with you, you would not be on your back. I have no love for your face.” He turned toward his brother and his unhappy sleeping mumbles. Then up through the grate as the lunatic shrieked again. “As it stands, I have neither the inclination nor the right to present any danger to you.” Then he was laying down, back turned to Altair and the whole conversation.

\--

Kadar stayed behind when Malik went to scout the area where they had found the treasure one more time. (His excuse for leaving the bureau as see-through as his overt discomfort at being around Altair.) The boy made an obvious show toward preparing himself, stretching his body and setting his weapons straight. But his dedication to preparation sputtered and died about the time Altair walked in to find him. The boy stared at him with no sense of shame; not even a vague attempt to hide the leer of his eyes searching for the critical difference between Altair’s body and his own.

“Your brother would not be happy to see you lusting after me,” Altair said. “At least not from this angle.” He crouched against the wall opposite Kadar. This brother he did not hate, could not hate for all his trying. Altair balanced his sword across his lap and watched spotty pink blush on Kadar’s cheeks. 

“No,” he said. “No, I don’t—I mean, I wouldn’t.”

“Ah,” Altair said. “Is it a prettier breeder you prefer? One of the women?”

Kadar was positively red at that point. He looked down, shuffled his knives around and cleared his throat several times looking for the ability to speak again. By the time he’d managed to produce a sound (strangled and strange as it was) his neck had turned as red as his face. He shifted on his bent knees and glanced toward the sky as he said, “how did you know? Was it obvious?”

“Yes,” Altair said.

“How old were you? The others—they have had a wager since I was very young that I was an omega. They said it was not too late for me.” It was a curious thing to ask. Kadar was surrounded by people that loved him (surely) and by Malik who was an authority on omegas (or so he would lead others to believe). It was a stomach-turning notion to think that someone had not educated the poor child on the real possibilities of his future. “I mean, it happened to you. Nobody expected it to happen to you.”

“Then there is no reason to expect that it will happen to you,” Altair said. But it was poor comfort, the way Abbas had used to tell him (all the time, always) that Altair was too tall and too strong to be an omega. The two of them in their childish anxiety over the onset of adulthood that was seizing their friends left-and-right. Abbas had been wrong, in the end, and all of his thoughtless mumbling had burn like bitterness in Altair’s gut for years. “Most likely, it will not happen to you. You are—fifteen?”

“Yes,” Kadar said.

“I knew when I was thirteen and I was among the last of the novices in my age. It starts as cramping first and as you grow older it becomes like a fever that comes every three months. I did not understand at first, what my body wanted. Then there is the bleeding.”

Kadar was looking to the side, not at him, with his pink-pink face looking repentant about having asked in the first place. But his tongue slid across his red-red lips as he said, “why did you stay? I’ve heard what they say about you. I’ve seen them talking about the things they would do to you. I am here because it is the only life I have known and I have shown no signs, but you do not have to be.”

Altair tipped his head back against the wall. The weight of the sword across his thighs was a happy reminder of his accomplishments (at what cost) and he closed his eyes to think through the bits of nonsense in his head. (Pride, the old Rafiq said. And you have it in abundance.) “Because I am better than they are and they should _know_ it.”

Kadar was going to say something, the sound of his mouth opening was loud enough to be heard over the fountains, but there was the beat of footsteps on the roof and then Malik’s body hitting the ground. “Is it still there?” was what Kadar said. 

“Yes,” Malik assured him. “Why are you not prepared to go?” 

Altair opened his eyes just enough to see Malik sneering at him. He stood and watched the petty anger that was shared among so many that thought they were better than him. That infuriating offense that Altair’s height and strength offered to the lesser men. Breeders were meant to be like Kadar: fair and small. Closer to the slim and pretty curves of a woman than a man.

“I am prepared,” Altair said. “Tell me what you’ve learned.”

Oh-and-Altair’s rank burned Malik straight down to his jealous bones. But he did what he was told and fell into step at Altair’s back with those brittle hateful things stuck in his throat.

\--

It was not a disaster until Robert’s hand closed around his throat. Forget what Altair had said about all men being giants to Kadar, this man was massive in height and size. His bald white head gleaming in the flickering light. But his eyes were dilated and _empty_ as he lifted Altair off the ground. The grip he had on his neck was tight enough to blacken the edges of his vision and the hand around his wrist was enough to make the leather and metal of the bracer cut into his skin. 

“You _are_ a rare jewel,” the man said to him. His voice was a soothing purr of a sound, the words (French, perhaps?) barely understood with the thunder of his heartbeat in his ears. The sound of the men at his back was the sound of metal against-metal and Malik’s righteous anger in grunts and groans. But the unsubtle draw of breath through Robert’s nose, the way he was sniffing at him like an animal, was as loud to him as a great stampede. Altair was losing his grip on consciousness, managed to fumble for the knife in his belt and swipe it through the air at Robert’s face. He hit something—flesh, hopefully bone—before he was dropped. The sharp kick landed against his thigh before Altair could get back on his feet. He spun around to find Robert catching him by the front of his robes, heard something rip as he was pulled forward. The knife in his hand was wobbly in his loose grip but it was enough to make a point about how he did not like to be manhandled. Robert’s Arabic was poor but understandable when he said, “tell the old man I do not accept his gifts and I am coming for him next.” Then he threw Altair with all of his strength and the sound of cracking wood and falling stone was a crushing weight of unconsciousness. 

\--

Altair woke up in rubble, covered in dust and flakes of broken stone. There was a pillar that must have collapsed under the weight of poor construction laying just to his side. It was a small (poor) miracle it had not crushed him as he was thrown against it. At first he could only look at the splintered wood and the dust that had settled in split grooves. The awareness of his body came back in slow, creeping aches. First a spike of something sharp stuck through the top of his hand (a splinter, nothing more) and then the numb tingling of his arm caught beneath his body. He rolled and the jar of _pain_ that the motion brought him nearly moved him to crying out. He arched away from the pressure against his back and scrambled (on sore, stiff legs) to his feet. The rubble all around him was spread around the shape of his body as a rain of little rocks and bits of things fell away from him. There was blood on his hands, a wide split in his skin where a wedge of wood had embedded itself through his glove. His face felt coated in grit and his mouth tasted like blood and dirt. But it was his back that throbbed with the greatest insistence. 

The pain of it was enough to bring him to a standstill just beyond the collapse. It was several minutes before he remember the exact events that had brought him to this point and that he’d left two of his brother inside of that miserable hellhole. Malik might have handled the men (there were but four) but Kadar was not so skilled. Altair cursed as he looked for a way through the fallen rock. After several tries he had managed nothing more significant than dislodging a few crumbling stones that caused a fresh slide of dirt. 

There was no further sound of movement from inside and no reason to think that the battle was still being waged. The sun marked the passage of time as hours, not minutes, and whatever had happened was surely over. Malik would have his say at Masyaf if he had lived. 

\--&\--

Malik woke in the morning with the sour taste of Altair’s words still in his mouth. Kadar was sleeping next to him, small-and-warm. His lax, hairless face, angelic in its androgynous softness. Many men had looked at Kadar with curious-long stares and a few of them had said more than they should have on the matter. Malik had held his breath for years, waiting for the moment his brother would reveal himself as an omega and be summarily removed from the ranks of novices. Some part of him (not so well hidden) would have delighted in the knowledge. He would not have to worry about Kadar’s safety if he were installed in a home with a husband and no greater danger posed to him than that of preparing meals and caring for children.

Omegas were _born_ to be wives and mothers. It had been the way of mankind since the beginning. It was only Altair, with his sharp words and his half-spoken accusations that seemed to be _offended_ at the very idea of it. As if he, alone, had the right to defy the basic truth of mankind.

And yet, Malik had fallen into brawls with men who spoke loosely about his brother. He might have wasted half his life fighting against it if Rauf (so calm when surrounded by incompetent little novices as Malik had been) had pulled him aside and told him to leave it be. “Men are animals,” Rauf said to him. “If you cannot live a life without appreciation for what could be yours, if you cannot live a life without thinking of what you would like to do when you see someone that boils your blood, you have no right to expect any other man to do it. Your brother does not belong solely to you.”

Malik had resolved to abstain from foul thoughts and cruder words but the effort exhausted him in a matter of days. He needed only to catch sight of Altair flashing his pale-skin as he worked through forms in the mostly empty courtyard or watch the aggravating sway of his hips was he walked. Or to see the far pretty women in the village that came to offer him food on the nights he returned home too late to prepare his own. He thought long (and often) of their soft bodies and of Altair’s harder one. When the other boys-and-men sat around sharing their own lewd ideas, Malik had a few of his own to add. 

Altair dropped from over his head, already fully dressed for the day save for the weapons he had stowed inside the bureau. He was chewing something as the straightened up, his eyes immediately found Malik awake and crossed the room without turning his back to him. Malik should have told him that he flattered himself with an exaggerated of his own desirability but he found he could say nothing.

Instead, he shook Kadar awake with an impatient hand. “Wake up,” he said. “I will go scout to be sure the path is clear. Be prepared to go when I return.” 

Kadar’s sleepy mumble conveyed his simple displeasure at these orders but he managed to get up on his elbows in acknowledgement. “Is Altair going with you?”

“No,” Malik said. Then he was up on his feet, gathering his weapons and strapping them in place to go. He told the Rafiq of his plan while Altair listened from the end of the room where made a show of preparing his own weapons. Then Malik left.

\--

It had not taken long to find the easiest path to Solomon’s Temple. He had tried several, looked for the easiest access and found a side entrance guarded by a single elderly man who had nodded off even while Malik watched him. Armed with the knowledge, he returned to the bureau to find his brother caught in an awkward half-thought-half-said state.

Altair glanced at him with a more careful distaste than the one he had offered the night before. 

\--

The mission was an utter disaster from the moment Altair killed the old man at the mouth of the tunnel they intended to sneak through. His justification (the man would have cried out and warned someone) was a pale attempt at a reason to end an innocent’s man life. But Altair did not heed his warning. 

“This is why I hate him,” Malik whispered against Kadar’s temple as Altair leaned forward across the edge of their poor hiding place. The four guards were below them but Altair was only looking at Robert De Sable (the giant of a man) who they had been told to engage only if absolutely necessary. 

Kadar was crouching between them, looking at Robert with a disastrous focus that robbed him of the chance to size up the other men that stood between them and their goal. The treasure would have been easy enough to retrieve if they could have managed enough patience to wait for the men to disperse. Yesterday the guards had talked long about how they disliked Robert’s inspections and the length of time they took. One had professed their unease at being so close to the ‘treasure’. “Your hate will not increase our chance of survival,” Kadar said quietly, “he is your superior, and you should follow his lead. This is what you say to me. You say it often.”

But Altair’s lead, when it came, threw them up against an enemy the had not had the time to prepare for. Robert threw Altair with great ease and his guards overpowered Kadar in a swarm of clanging swords and armor. Malik dispatched the one man that had bothered to attack him. The effort earned him a sharp stinging pain in his lower arm and a rush of heat. 

Robert’s laugh was a bristling sound from just beyond the crush of bodies shoving Kadar to the ground. One of them drove his sword down through the center of the group and Kadar’s scream of pain echoed loudly off the walls and ceilings. Malik killed one man and stabbed a second in the side between the awkward plates of armor meant to protect him. Robert was watching from the side, his face caught in a genial smile.

“This is not funny to you?” Robert asked. “This is funny to _me_.”

Malik kicked the last man off his brother and Robert whistled after them like a master calling his dogs. Kadar was getting back to his feet, face pale but strength still in his movements. There was nobody to attack him now, the two men left alive were pulling the treasure from where it had stood. Malik stabbed one in the throat and tore the treasure from the other’s hand before he turned to grab his brother’s forearm and pulled him toward a tunnel. He didn’t know (but hoped) it would lead them to an exit. 

Kadar was limping through a run, hissing with every awkward stumble until he fell against the wall and grabbed his leg with both hands. There was barely any light, only enough to see the gush of dark-red-blood, pulsing from an open gash in Kadar’s thigh. It was a fatal wound in most men but Malik dropped the treasure to reach for a strip of cloth he kept in his belt. Kadar’s hands were shaking—slick and hot and wet—when they pushed him back. His pale-pale face was covered in sweat. “Malik,” he said with a helpless pant of breath.

“We have to keep moving,” Malik snapped back at him. He grabbed Kadar by the arm and pulled him out toward the exit. But Kadar stumbled and tripped, his breath in heavy pants of effort as he went. When he fell, his body pitched forward and knocked into Malik’s. His hands pulled at Malik’s belt. Instinctively, Malik went closer to him. “This is no time for you to be lazy,” he said.

The sound of rushing footsteps drew Malik’s attention away from Kadar’s pale face for a half second. He had lost his sword, had a handful of throwing knives and the short blade still. He was not fond of either but he was skilled enough to fend off another attack. 

“Malik,” Kadar said.

“What?” Malik demanded. “Get up.”

Kadar smiled (his lips were so pale). “You have been a better brother than I deserved.” Then his hand was dragging across his throat with a blossom of red washing down the stretched skin of his throat. The wound, hesitant on the left was deep enough on the right to bring a renewed spray of arterial blood. Malik screamed at him (mindless of the approaching danger) and closed his hand around the wound. The blood slid slickly through his fingers and spurted in speckled drops against the ground and walls. Kadar’s hand pushed weakly at his chest. “Go,” his lips said as his eyes closed. 

The rush of the oncoming enemy knocked Malik back into his feet. His body long-trained to survive by any means available, took over where his the reeling shock of his mind faltered and stilled. He clutched at the treasure in his slick left hand and ran with all the speed he could force into his rubbery legs. 

\--

The exit seemed to come from nowhere, a sunny relief from the cramped-dark-tunnels. His boots skidded in the loose dirt and he ran right-not-left, toward some half-remembered hiding place. There was a patch of trees that provided no cover and a long trail that he lost his footing on and rolled down. The dirt flew into his eyes and his mouth as he struggled back to his feet. The treasure (an unwanted burden) fell from the chilled fingers of his left hand. He wiped at the filth on his face to clear his vision and saw the last of the guards rushing toward him with a sword held out to the side. 

Malik stood his ground with nothing but the short blade to fight with. The heavy swing of the enemy’s sword passed just over his head as he ducked out of the way and drove upward with the full extent of his strength. The short blade struck bone and the impact vibrated up his arm and into his shoulders in a way that made his bones seem to turn to jelly. It was a fatal wound but he’d lost the weapon in the effort. 

Out in the sunshine, the wound on his arm was an immediate concern. The split of raw-red-meat was bloody mess that had not yet registered over the thrumming of his heartbeat and the shaky disbelief of what had just happened. For one moment, the world blinked out as white noise and he could think of nothing in the world save for the way his forearm was cut down to the bone. 

Survival training kicked in with the next beat of his heart. He pulled the strip of cloth he used as tourniquet out of his belt and wound it around his upper arm, used his teeth to pull it tight enough to stop the rapid flow of blood. He turned toward the treasure, reached out to grab it and held it up against his chest as he ducked low and _ran_. 

His mind a cycle of three simple thoughts: horse. Masyaf. _Altair_.


	3. Chapter 3

When Altair finally reached a well he drank greedily and poured a bucket over his head to wash away the dirt that was melting away like streaks of mud down the sides of his face. There were a few curious stares directed at him, but most people had come to associate the white robes and the red sash as a call to look the other way. Altair was never as grateful for the selective ignorance as he was in that moment. He pulled the wood out of the top of his hand now that he had water to clean the wound and scrubbed it until the skin was pink and the blood ran a fresh bright red. Then he wrapped it with a spare scrap of cloth.

He spared a coin to buy a decent meal from a woman that asked him no questions, but he stole a horse when he found one idly picking at the available grass.

\--

Altair could not ride for long stretches of time, the agony of his back was enough to force him off the horse and back to the ground. The stiffness in his legs made walking nearly as unpleasant but at least there was hope that motion and time would ease the tightness in his joints. It was the monotony of walking that ate at him, the unknown fate of his brothers that nagged him as he wasted time crossing uneven land on foot with a stolen horse following after him with encouraging noises. 

It was that uncertainty that got him back on the horse with teeth gritted tight against the pain. He made camp out of the way halfway between here-and-there, settled down to eat the little scrap of meat that he’d managed to catch while the stolen horse grazed. Exhaustion was settling hard into his bones in such a way that did not match even the injury to his body. It came without mercy and dragged him under. 

\--

The journey took several days to complete, transitioning between walking and riding. Masyaf rose before him as he pulled the horse out of a gallop and into a slow walk. The men that kept the stables outside of the village were scoffing at the sight of another stolen horse. Altair tolerated their objections to his thievery the way they tolerated the chore of returning the horse to its owner. 

“Has Malik or Kadar returned?” Altair asked one.

“No,” they said. “What happened to the horse you left with?”

Altair had left it outside of Jerusalem when he was (again) obliged to assist a scholar that was being bullied by a number of guards. He might have been able to locate it but it would have taken him a longer time than he wished to spend. So he said nothing to them and started the walk up the side of the mountain to the castle. If Malik and Kadar had survived the surely would have returned already (victorious and full of tales of his failure). He considered how best to relay the news of the brothers’ almost certain death to Al Mualim when he had not seen it with his own eyes. 

By the time he reached the castle itself, he had decided to declare the whole mission a failure and leave the news of Malik-and-Kadar’s death to be decided by the discovery of their corpses or the return of their living bodies. The old Rafiq of Jerusalem would surely be listening for whispers of murdered assassins. Rauf stopped him before he could get inside, got one gruff hand on Altair’s arm and smiled at him with terribly unwanted friendship. 

“Altair,” he said, “the novices are in need of a demonstration. If you are staying, perhaps you could show them the skill a true master possesses.” He was, perhaps, the only man who spoke the words without a sense of irony to them. There was no sarcasm or bitter jealousy in his appreciation of Altair’s skill. Rauf had been among the men that had trained him and he took pride in Altair’s achievements even after the truth revealed itself. 

“If I stay,” Altair assured him.

Al Mualim was (surprised into) smiling when he saw him, arms-spread and voice in magnanimous welcome. Altair did not step into the greeting or offer it in return but stood beyond arm’s distance when he said, “the mission was a failure. We did not retrieve the treasure and I am uncertain of the fate of my brothers.”

“What?” Al Mualim shouted at him. 

“Robert threw me, I was unable to—”

“Threw you?” Al Mualim repeated. He stepped closer and Altair did not step away. The close distance put his wounded, ragged body in easy striking distance but Al Mualim did not strike out in petty vengeance (often). “Are you a Master Assassin, the youngest and strongest of your generation?”

“The Templar was an underestimated enemy,” Altair said quietly. “I could not—”

Al Mualim’s face was drawn in a cold fury, the sort of look that crossed his face when he was working out the punishment for an unforgiveable crime. The sort that shook the resolve in Altair’s spine and left him feeling as if he were being turned inside out by a single glance. Whatever he meant to say was interrupted by shouts on the steps behind him. Altair turned enough to see Malik—filthy with blood, burdened with the weight of a dead-and-blackening left arm—spitting venomous hate. At his back, two scuttling novices were carrying the heavy golden treasure they had been sent to retrieve. It’s dull glow a bright spot in the shadows of the tall bookcases that surrounded Al Mualim’s massive desk. 

“I did what your favorite could not,” Malik spit at him. “And I’ve brought company with me as well. An army headed by Robert De Sable.”

“Where is Kadar?” Altair said.

“Dead,” Malik hissed. There were men—surgeons—pulling at him, to move him away from the scene but Malik shook them off. Anger had carried him through the long days of travel and propelled him up the steps to stand in front of Altair. The insulting difference in their heights made a moot point by the violence of the hand that slapped him with such great distaste. “Your arrogance killed my brother. Your kind do not belong in our ranks.” 

“It was not my choice to bring him nor my responsibility to protect him,” Altair said back. He might have said more but Al Mualim was calling orders and Malik was away to be treated by the surgeons and Altair was sent to assist with defending against the invasion. 

\--

Robert De Sable and his army were sent away—cowed and frightened—and Altair returned to the castle expecting rest (at very least) only to be seized by men that surpassed his own height. Al Mualim looked at him the way so many other men had looked at him since the knowledge of his sex had whispered its way through the castle and surrounding village. The disdain as clear on his face now as it had ever been on the faces of men that viewed Altair as nothing but another body to bend to their wills. Altair was made to be used by men that were made to use him. The sudden drop in gravity was nearly staggering set against the long years of Al Mualim’s sweet reassurances of his continued usefulness. 

The sharp sting of a slap across his face was less a humiliation and more a betrayal. Al Mualim pulled his head back up with a fist in his hair. “You have always been the fastest and strongest of your age, Altair. When your sex was first revealed, I thought it must have been a mistake—sometimes these sort of things can be mistaken—and then I thought that your usefulness on the field of battle outweighed the danger you posed. I stood against the many that objected. I protected you from the men that wished you put in your rightful place. I was wrong. Omegas are too temperamental to be trustworthy, obedient only when properly taken in hand and troublesome when left unchecked. You showed such promise, once.”

There was a rush of noise all around him, the great assembled crowd of men who had followed after Malik-and-Abbas in blind, petty hatred of him. Altair straightened and the two men holding his arms back yanked him off balance again. Al Mualim was _pleased_ at his stumble, pleased by the fear that he could not keep from his face. 

“But you have broken the tenants of our creed—you have killed an innocent man, you have revealed yourself and you have brought the most dangerous of our enemies to our gates. Your brashness and your disregard proves, finally, that your kind cannot be a brother.” 

“I’m a better assassin than any other in our brotherhood,” Altair hissed at him. And for this defiance he was struck again, knocked to the side and righted in a series of jerky, half-motions. He saw the glint of the knife in the brief seconds before he heard Al Mualim’s voice announcing his sentence for the crimes he had committed. 

When death came it was a white shock of pain neatly contained on either side by Al Mualim’s yellowing teeth slim and narrow between his thin lips. 

\--

Altair woke up with a shout rattling in his throat and both arms waving wildly to the sides of his body. He was stripped to the waist, left on a pallet in a dank prison cell with a persistent chill that seeped through the mossy stones at the base of the castle. Both of his hands spread across his gut to search for the wound that ended his life and found nothing but the creases of skin where they always had been. 

A shuffle of noise to his left drew his attention toward the door of his cell. The rattle of keys urged him to his feet and an assassin with a hunched back and a sour face motioned him to follow. Altair followed him through the tunnel-like halls back into the warm interior of the castle where the flurry of motion continued on as if nothing had ever interrupted it. Altair climbed the stairs to where Al Mualim stood by his desk. The anger and derision that had made his face into a terrible mask of hatred only days ago was absent now. There again was the affection of a father, the look of regret and pride that mixed together so poorly.

“I thought I died,” Altair said when Al Mualim did not speak first. Even now, he could feel the blade when it pierced his flesh and the great storming of noise and light just before death took him away. 

“You did, in a way. You have slept as a dead man and been reborn again.” Al Mualim’s hands on his shoulders were leathery and tight. Altair looked at the nearly healed wound on the back of his hand and tried to reconcile the idea of having slept for so many days he could not recognize his own body any longer. “You are no longer an assassin, Altair. The crimes you have committed are too great.”

“Then you should have killed me,” Altair said. There was no other life that would suit him; no other life that he would tolerate.

“The good you have done, Altair, the good that you might still do is not without measure. Your arrogance and your disobedience are not solely your fault. I have been lenient with you, I have allowed you the same free reign I have given the other brothers. Omegas—they are not made for the life you have led. They must be guided or they drive men to ruin.”

“I have driven no man to ruin,” Altair said. He wanted the words to shake from his throat like a snake’s hiss but they were barely a monotone drone when they passed his lips. 

“Haven’t you? Kadar—one of our promising novices—is dead. Malik, a fellow assassin from your own age group, has been grievously injured. Because you, because of your disregard for what you have been taught. Is that not ruin?"

Vitality was leeching out of his chest with the surge of hysterical realization that took its place. Altair had been _stripped_ of rank and position and Al Mualim was squeezing his (bare) shoulders with regretful finality. “I have been faithful,” Altair said. “One failure among a dozen victories…”

“And in reward,” Al Mualim cut in. “I have spared your life. There is a debt you owe, a life that was lost because of your negligence and your disobedience. To repay this debt, and perhaps to give you a chance to be learn to be thankful for what you have, you have been married to—”

“ _No_ ,” Altair snapped before he could stop himself.

“Malik,” Al Mualim finished. “I have watched you grow together. He is one of two men I could name that were capable of the task set before them. Perhaps, in time you will learn the importance of obedience and humility and how to be thankful for what you have been given. Seeking more than one needs is the recipe for unhappiness.”

Altair wanted to open his mouth, to seethe in anger the great list of things that he was capable of doing rather than accepting his fate. Al Mualim seemed to expect it out of him, the look on his face and the lean of his body was waiting for the defiant drawl of words. “He wouldn’t have me,” he said.

“He is more practical than you,” Al Mualim said blandly. “He has lost an arm as well as a brother. The best he could hope for is a barren woman to keep him company. A child is a miraculous gift, Altair. One that you can provide easily.” The hand that touched his waist made Altair’s gut _writhe_. “As with all things, your body excels in fertility. While it will not be the same as the life your negligence took from him, it is something more than his present situation is likely to get him. It is done, Altair. You will follow your husband’s lead and heed his commands or he is free to use whatever discipline he feels appropriate.”

“Malik needs no justification for petty violence,” Altair hissed. “If I do well, what then?”

“Then you will have learned what I have failed to teach you in all of my years of trying.”

“What is that?” Altair asked.

“Your place,” Al Mualim said (so very simply, as if it were so very obvious). “If you mean to ask if you can return to the brotherhood.”

“I do.”

“I cannot imagine your husband would allow it but if I were to receive a recommendation from such a respected member of our brotherhood that you should be reinstated, I would allow you to return as a novice.”

A novice. Altair bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying another word. The hand that was still half-curved around his stomach was pressed across a pulse of sickness that he could not fight against. Not even anger (as black-and-encompassing as it was) could give him enough sense of calm to fight the rising _need_ to vomit. “Where should I find my husband?”

“He is with the surgeons still.” Then the old man looked at him as if assessing him for potential, the same look he’d given Altair when he was only just a boy who had run to him crying the awful truth of his body. Al Mualim had been the first (perhaps the only) man who had not condemned him but offered him the chance to prove himself to the other boys how had called him names and proposed marriage with bawdy laughs and rowdy catcalls. It was a poor consolation now as his hands released him and his eyes with such useless pity turned away from the very sight of Altair. 

He barely made it beyond the doors of the castle before he doubled over and vomited against the stones. 

\--

The surgery was a series of rooms removed from the main castle by narrow halls. The rooms were scrubbed clean but the scent of blood and excrement was heavy despite the best efforts of the cleaning women that came with buckets of water every few hours. Altair was out-of-place (at best) in this place, uncomfortable with the groan of injured brothers lying out in various states of near-death. The assassin who had missed the hay days earlier was groaning in his bed, the enormous swelling of his broken leg a garish-red shape beneath the light sheet that covered him. The fine sheen of sweat across his face doing little to mask the delirious roll of his eyes and the parched smacking of his lips. 

“You should not be here,” the surgeon said when he found Altair staring at one man’s gray face. His body had clearly gone cold the way his eyes had gone dim and distant. The surgeon put a hand on Altair’s arm to push him back toward the door, either unaware or unobservant to the fact that Altair was here under orders. When the squat man in the bloody clothes finally looked all the way up to his face (past his still-bared chest) his face paled and then darkened. “Ah, yes,” he said. Then he turned abruptly and motioned Altair after him. 

They walked through a second ward of groaning men to a series of doors that were individual rooms and in the third, set in the middle of a poor circle, Malik was sitting on the edge of a raised bed. His bare feet were unsteady on the floor as his body dipped forward, the full strength of his bare shoulders apparently worthless against the weight of his missing limb. The bandages around what remained of his left arm were spotted here-and-there with blood and the surgeon (upon seeing Malik trying to stand) flew into a frenzy of objections. He all but physically shoved Malik back onto the bed and threatened him with further injury (and death) should he try anything so stupid again. 

“They will bring food soon,” the surgeon said once Malik was flat on his back again, “be sure he eats it and that he stays where he is.” Then the man was slipping out of the door and closing it behind him. 

Malik regarded him (with cloudy, distant eyes) before letting out a short bark of a laugh. “I thought it was a hallucination. I thought it a nightmare that Al Mualim had come to me with the glad news of a happy wife to ease my loss.” His laugh was a grating, painful sound. His right hand rubbed across the sweat on his forehead and covered his eyes as the breaking sound of those laughs turned into raw hiccups. “You are an insult, a worthless and unwanted consolation.”

“The feeling is mutual, _husband_.” Altair looked for a place to sit and finding only a spare cushion (flattened by repeated use) propped himself up against the wall farthest from where Malik lay. He could see the glittering, unfocused darkness of the man’s eyes looking for him in the dim room. That spiteful vigor that had always colored Malik’s face and kept his lungs full of foul-temperament seemed exhausted. He said nothing else but lapsed into an uneasy sleep.

\--&\--

It was difficult to think around the thick syrupy feeling that kept him stuck in a stupor. The heaviness of the drink they had poured into his mouth left his head sloshing side-to-side with an unpleasant empty feeling. Malik could tell there were things—many things—lurking beneath the liquid blackness that encompassed his head and his body. 

Creeping things with long-long legs and pale faces that dripped-and-dropped speckles of red-red-blood wherever they went. And the nightmares came like that, the illusion of a thought, the idea of a memory he could not piece together.

\--

When he rose out of the blackness, there was a barren woman there with hushing noises and insistent hands pushing him flat again and again. There was sips of water and broth and cool cloths that rubbed across his heated skin with relentless stiff scratching. It was light outside (but when, which day and _where_ ) before he rose to a high enough level of consciousness to look at his own ruined body. His legs were too weak to respond to his attempts to move them (beyond the first feeble kicks at the air) and his right arm was a leaden weight that moved with the greatest protest. 

But he could turn his head, tip his chin against his his chest and look at the wrapped-white-bandages around the thickness of his upper arm. Nothing beneath it, all of the muscle and bone neatly removed by the violence of surgeons with saws and no sense of kindness left in their eyes. Malik had known the arm was lost long before he fell off his horse at the gates of Masyaf. With the army at his back—swelling up with noise and vicious intent—there had not been time to tend to the wound properly. The blood flowed freely whenever he’d loosened the tourniquet until he could not afford even the time for that. His fingertips had burnt and ached before they swelled and blackened. The open flesh of his arm (poorly covered) had started to smell of rotten meat as the open ends of his flesh gaped open. 

This he had known, dragging his prize with him as he climbed the hill toward Al Mualim. The stared faces of his brothers and the villagers following him as he went. There had been no exhaustion in his body but the singular idea that he could deliver the treasure to Al Mualim and name Altair as the traitor he was. Then he could die and have the peace that this miserable life could no longer offer him.

Death had not yet found him, in a private room of the surgery, held in the grip of a fever and twisting with the pain of an amputated limb. (With the repeating-repeating-repeating image of his baby-brother’s throat split open and the word on his pale lips saying _go_.)

\--

Malik woke to the slithering touch of leathery hands across his left shoulder. The lightest of touches bringing a fire-bright burn of pain that rocked him upward on his right elbow and left him heaving in exhaustion. He stared open-mouthed and confused at the wavering figure of Al Mualim. (A hallucination? A dream? One of many nightmares, perhaps.) He reached out with his right hand pressed the tips of his fingers against the fine clothe of his clothes before collapsing back in place. 

Perhaps it was real then, Al Mualim had come to see him.

“Tell me what has happened,” Al Mualim said through the fog of hazy-reality that filled Malik’s head. His voice a stern but strange echo. “Tell me everything that happened.”

Malik’s tongue was rough sand across his broken lips. His chest was hollow without enough air to speak but he filled the air with the (hateful, bitter) truth. Of Altair’s disregard for his warning, of the four guards and the one giant of a man who had laughed at them. 

“You have done well,” Al Mualim said softly. “I will come again when you are stronger.”

If he left, Malik did not know. He was sleeping again, caught in that liquid nightmare filled with creeping things.

\--

“I leave it to you,” the voice in his ear said (scuttling across the bed on many feet like a filthy insect). “His crimes are greatest against you, no man would begrudge your vengeance if you take it. But there are other uses for him, yes?” (For who?) “ _Satisfying_ uses for his body that was made to please men. I have seen how you look at him; I have guessed at the truth you haven’t said. I could give him to you, to serve you, to pleasure you and he can give you a son—a dozen sons.” (A pause.) “No father will give his omega child to you now. You’re _ruined_ and your family line dies with you. This is an honor your loyalty has earned you, a reward for your final success.”

Malik turned his head toward the voice. His eyes were half-open and his head felt stuffed full of something thick and tacky. His tongue was heavy in his mouth and he could not feel the full extent of his _ruined_ body. 

“He would find his place in your bed, Malik. It is what you always thought, isn’t it?”

Al Mualim was wavering in-and-out again. The offer he was extending an ugly thought caught in the mushy edges of Malik’s limited awareness. He was caught on the words, the end of his family. (The death of his brother.) He was trying to find words (any words) to push through his narrow throat. 

“He will be yours to do with as you wish.”

Oh-and-something hot-and-foul rushed into full awareness in Malik’s chest as he focused fully on Al Mualim. The idea of the _things_ he could do to that wretched beast of a man. His mouth moved around the shape of words he could not force through his throat. And Al Mualim _smiled_ so very _pleased_ at how it had gone. His hands (leathery and brief) touched Malik’s face and then pulled away. 

“Rest now. Rest and heal.” Then his face wavered in-and-out again and Malik slept. “I will send your wife soon.”

\--

Altair came the next day or three days later or maybe a week. Time was an inconstant thing that slipped and ran and stalled out again. Malik was weaned off the liquid oblivion that knocked him out of reality and into some other form of consciousness that gave him a needed respite from the truth.

Then Altair with his face as impassive as stone. Malik thought (I should have had him killed) for the very sight of him was enough to wring an agonized _reality_ from the cluttered mess of his memory.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for VectorAlpha who is no longer anonymous.

In absence of direct commands by his new husband, Altair was given tasks by the surgeons and the women that assisted them. On his second day of captivity in the awful little room, he was given heated water and several cloths to clean Malik with. The sweat of an intermittent fever had dried across his skin in cracking salt streaks here-and-there. The dirt of several days travel had not been cleaned in all the time he’d spent in his room. 

Altair regarded the chore he’d been given with practicality. It was the first time he’d been tasked with cleaning another person but it did not seem a particularly difficult task. He started by cleaning Malik’s face and neck. The water—warm as it was—must have been cool against Malik’s skin because he woke from his uneven slumber with a foul grimace. “I was told to bathe you,” he said.

Malik considered this bit of information with distaste. “Where was this obedience when it was _actually needed_?” he asked. The words were hollow in his mouth, weak in the air around them. Altair did not bother to answer them as he worked to clean Malik’s exposed skin. By the time he had washed his chest and arms to their mutual satisfaction, Malik had woken up enough to take great pleasure in his discomfort. “Our bodies are very similar, are they not?”

“Mine is superior,” Altair retorted. He undid the laces of Malik’s pants and tugged them down and then off, dropped them on the damp floor. They were hardly fit to wear after days of travel, covered in blood and dirt and whatever other unpleasant things Malik had wandered into on those days. He started with Malik’s ankles, worked his way up from there, pausing at his knees and then again at mid-thigh. 

“The great and fearless Altair—the youngest Master Assassin in all the history of our brotherhood, defeated by a cock. If only the enemy had known of this fatal weakness, you would have been slayed in battle and all of us spared the consequences of your arrogance.” He sat up enough to tear the rag from Altair’s hand and scrubbed himself clean with ruthlessness that was discomforting at best. He didn’t flinch when Malik threw the rag back at him but picked it up when it hit the ground and dropped it into the bucket of water he’d been given. Malik’s snickering followed him to the door where a woman smiled obligingly and exchanged the bucket for a fresh pile of clothes. Malik stood to get dressed—wobbly and uncertain on his feet—and frowned so severely at him as he tied the laces of his pants that it seemed as if he were trying to bore a hole through Altair’s skull. “You are a burden I do not want,” Malik said.

“You are a humiliation that I am now forced to endure,” Altair said. “A crippled man with no purpose or use. Perhaps it would have been better if you died of your own incompetence.”

Malik hit him and there was nothing Altair could do about it. Malik _owned_ him by every law of their people. But the burn of the pain was nothing in comparison to the dawning realization on Malik’s face that their relationship had shifted so monumentally in his favor (at last). They were not equal; they were not even. Altair did not hold rank or power over Malik but was his subservient _bitch_ obediently awaiting commands. 

“You will not strike me,” Altair said to him. “Whatever the law thinks of our _marriage_ , I will gladly bathe myself in your blood before I allow it.”

“You were given to me so that I would teach you to obey.” The words were so soft and sincere across Malik’s chapped lips. But his hatred could not sustain his wounded body as he wilted back into the bed. Altair put his legs back up and watched him rubbing his haggard, gray face with his hand. “Perhaps you will get your wish, Altair. You may have a fresh husband by nightfall.”

It occurred to Altair in that second, as it had not occurred to him before, that if Malik were to die there was perhaps only one other man Al Mualim would have considered competent to enough to marry and break him. Malik was wounded, cruel with grief and vengeance but he was still a _just_ man ruled primarily by his unwavering sense of right-and-wrong. (The other was none of these things.) The quality of his life (and the possibility of being reinstated as an Assassin) would decrease drastically with Abbas. Altair grabbed Malik by the chin, “if you are too great a coward to face your task, than die and be done with it.” 

Malik frowned weakly at him. “Do not speak to me like that.”

\--

There was nothing to do but wait. The hours of the day lagged in the cramped room where he sat (and stood, and paced) waiting for Malik to decide to live or die. The surgeons and the barren women that circled the surgery and attended to the moaning corpses (all dead men, surely) beyond the door came once or twice to leave broth and frown over Malik’s progress.

“Sit up,” Altair said. The bowl of broth was balanced in one of his hands as he slid his other hand around Malik’s neck and pulled him up to an uncertain upright position. Malik’s body sagged against his, heated by a fever, as his face contorted in a grimace of pain. Altair fed him the broth in little sips. He held him upright and rinsed his body with cool water to fight away the heat. “You cannot die,” Altair said to him.

Malik’s response was a flighty sound of amusement. He was holding himself up with all of his strength, eyes weak as he looked up at Altair. “Are you scared, Altair?”

“Are you so weak?” Altair said in return. 

He had hoped for rebuttal or for anger. Malik was infamous for his temper in Masyaf, imminently unlikeable by disposition but respected for his adherence to the tenets of their creed and his loyalty to his brothers. Malik’s anger had moved mountains in their youth, pushed him to the head of the class to compete against Altair when all others had fallen back. But there was no anger in his face when his right hand touched Altair’s bare chest, eyes narrowing in curious observation as his two fingers ran across the darkened circle of his nipple. Then he looked at Altair’s face and there was the most sincere misery on his face. “He couldn’t escape,” Malik said softly. “He couldn’t walk.” Then he slid back down to lay against the bed. Sleep pulled Malik away again, the fever burned his skin to a rosy blush.

Altair stood at the bedside with his fist clenched around a wet rag and a wretched knot in his throat. He looked at the stone walls, at the stout shelf along the far wall, at the gaps in the doorframe and the webs that were thick in a corner of the room. He looked everywhere-everywhere in the room but at Malik and the unwanted confessions still caught in his body. And when Altair could not keep his eyes open another second, when the burn of dryness forced his lids to close, his couldn’t keep the shiver out of his shoulders or the dampness caught in his eyelashes. “I’m sorry,” he said (not to Malik, who deserved it less than most). 

\--

Night came and a hushed agony drifted through the surgery. Altair sat with his bare back against the cold stones and his hands in his lap. He kept watch over Malik’s uneven breathing and the rattle of his unhappy moans. When the barren women and the surgeons had lapsed into silence, Altair went to the well and fetched water. He woke Malik again and again to force him to drink and to trickle the water across the heated blush on his skin. 

In the last hours of the night, when his body was exhausted from the effort of fighting for Malik’s life, he sat and drifted to sleep. His head pillowed against the stone, his body kept upright only by the angle of his back against the wall. He dreamt of _nothing_ , a black chasm of things with a cacophony of _sound_ that drove him back into wakefulness to find a surgeon curiously inspecting Malik’s wound. 

The sound of his waking alerted them both to his presence because the surgeon turned toward him. “Good, you are awake. Come and learn how to wrap these bindings.” 

Malik’s dark-dark eyes were watching him when Altair finally saw the naked wound. It was not enflamed or yellowed with infection. The edges of his skin were still red from trauma but the flesh was pink and healthy even as his skin prickled up from the cold. It was Malik’s face, no longer flushed with fever, that had gone sour. 

The surgeon did not notice or care but showed Altair how to wrap the bindings and explained to him when and where to do so. He told him what medicinal herbs would help with pain and healing and listed several dishes that he might make to promote faster healing. Altair listened with a careful neutrality—aware of Malik’s growing anger—until the surgeon was satisfied. 

“You will leave in the afternoon. The fever has broken and there is no more that we can do for you here that cannot be accomplished in equal measure in the comfort of your own home.” Then he nodded and ducked from the room. 

“Your face betrays no emotion,” Malik said when they were alone. The words, themselves, were not an assault so much as the way they were spoken. “I remember even when we were children, you were made like a stone.”

“I remember you having the opposite problem. Your face betrays your every thought and your temper undermines your every attempt at control. It is what makes you a poor assassin, Malik.” 

“ _Made_ ,” Malik corrected.

Altair looked at the fresh bandages he had wrapped and then at Malik’s smugly-hurt face. “If you have resigned yourself to living, perhaps you should resolve to face your future with greater tolerance than you have for your past,” Altair said. 

Malik’s laugh was so brittle it broke like glass. The shattered shards of it purposefully painful. The effort of the laugh knocked him back into the bed with one of his bare feet against the edge of it and the other leg stretched toward the end. His hand was against his bare chest as he laughed. “I should have let him kill you,” Malik said when his voice was thick with mirth. “It was my choice and this is what I picked.” His head cocked to the side, his eyes a purposefully grotesque leer as they looked Altair’s body. The challenge was clear and Altair did not move to cover himself but let Malik do whatever he pleased until the effort bored him. “Find me something to eat,” Malik said.

Altair did not run; his steps did not waver. He went through the door and out of the surgery toward the castle’s kitchen.

\--&\--

As the effects of the fever passed, the many things Malik had not had the clarity to think of came back to him. The pains of his body, varied in urgency and type, provided a momentary distraction as he struggled to stay sitting upright. His left arm was an odd shape ending several inches above where his elbow had once been. The rounded curve of his still well-formed shoulder was entirely unchanged and yet a few inches lower Malik’s entire life had been irrevocably _severed_ and a great unknown left behind as empty space covered in phantom sensations..

He let his head fall forward in a useless lull. His life as an assassin was over. His life as a brother had died. Nearly everything he had held true in the world was no longer. 

Then Altair, carrying a bowl cradled between his two hands with its steaming contents smelling too strongly to be tolerated, returned to him as the most unwanted burden. He set the bowl on the low shelf and shook his pinked hands out at the side to cool them. 

Malik still hated Altair. It was not much. Considering how intertwined their futures had become, it hardly seemed like enough to build anything solid upon. But it was enough (in that moment) to concentrate on. Hating Altair came easily and quickly to him; following along was the desire to punish him for _existing_. (To make him understand the terrible cost of his arrogance and his defiance of the natural order of the world. To make him _understand_ that Kadar had died in a dank tunnel.) “How do you expect I could eat it from here?”

“You should be careful how you wield your new power, _Malik_.” 

“Should I show the same care you showed when you led us toward our doom in Solomon’s Temple?” But then— “Ah, but you met no doom in those rooms, did you? Your body is still whole and strong. You’ve lost nothing.”

“I’ve lost my freedom. I’ve lost my rank.” Altair picked up the bowl and considered the contents and the lack of utensils. He frowned at his own forgetfulness and then scooped a small mouthful of food with his fingers. His face-like-stone and his voice toneless-and-bland gave no indication that these losses pained him. 

“You have not lost these things. You have simply been restored to where you were long meant to be.” Malik opened his mouth and felt a pleasing, vicious twist of satisfaction at the tense, embarrassed anger caught in Altair’s frown. The man had never before (not in the years of their youth) served Malik as much as a cup of water. He had once thrown a pot full of piss on him and he had once fed him a salad of greens that turned his stomach and made him sick for days. But he had never offered anything without spite.

“How pleased you must be,” Altair hissed at him.

“I am not pleased,” Malik assured him. “I would rather you had died and my brother lived. If I cannot have that, nothing _pleases_ me.” Then he opened his mouth again and waited for Altair to feed him another bite. The man did not look at him but down at the bowl.

\--

When the surgeon returned to teach him the stretched he would need to do in order to retain the most mobility and use of his ruined arm, Malik waved his right hand and sent Altair out-and-away. He was inoffensive in the distance, looking anywhere he could manage but at Malik, and yet his presence was disgusting.

“You must do these,” the surgeon told him with one hand on his shoulder and the other guiding what remained of his arm. “There will be pain at first but if you are diligent about completing these several times a day, the pain will lessen.” Then the surgeon stood back and watched him finish the set to be sure he was capable. “You are fortunate your body is still young and strong.”

Malik neither agreed nor disagreed. 

“You are well enough now to go. Recover in your own home under the care of your new wife.”

Malik laughed then; the shake in his chest jarring his tender wound. “Has my happy union been announced?”

“No. I know if only to keep from sending Altair away. I would not have admitted him to my surgery under any other circumstances.” The surgeon’s lip curled up at the very thought. “He has surpassed my every expectation. The women have given him a list of things to prepare that will help your body regain its strength. If he does as well with those instructions as he has with the ones he was given here, you will recover quickly.” But a side-long glance of warning before, “Give yourself time to heal before you attempt _strenuous_ activities.” Then the surgeon clapped a hand on his shoulder with a slight pat and turned toward the door. “Safety and peace, brother,” he said before he was gone.

\--

Malik had no desire to leave the empty safety of the surgery and return to his home in the village. There was too much there to look at: all of the spaces that he had shared with Kadar, the belongings of a brother who simply was _not_ , and the jostle of memories that were held back by the stretched-tight grip of stubborn denial. But the barren women had come in the early afternoon to rouse him out of a light sleep and usher him out through the door. He found himself out in the sunshine of the intolerable day with his unwanted burden falling easily in step behind him, hovering uselessly two steps to his left. The clothes that (the women said) Altair had fetched for him were crooked as the empty sleeve swung freely at his side. There were only a few people standing around the doors of the surgery but there were many along the path from the castle to his home. 

“I do not want to be seen with you now,” Malik said. _Or ever_.

Altair said, “at last, a sentiment we share,” in return before disappearing in a flutter of barely-heard footsteps. Malik drew in a breath and forced his wobbling (unfamiliar) body to move. His steps were not the easy stride of an assassin but the shuffling slow drag of a man barely saved from death. His sense of balance was pulled off center and his attempts to compensate left him with an uncomfortable slant. His left shoulder was knotted and tight from the burden of pain that came in echoing waves, flickering now and again with the phantom feeling of his (no longer there) fist clenching. But he steeled himself against these unfortunate, momentary weaknesses and straightened his back and held his head high. 

Malik entered the courtyard in front of the castle, saw the assembly of novices whining after training and the collection of here-and-there assassins calling out mocking encouragement to a set of boys training with heavy wooden swords. It was the obvious, those first few seconds after the men saw him, the flicker of realization at what they were seeing and the pity that brewed in their faces. It struck him as Rauf started walking toward him (face alarming with friendly sorrow) that Altair’s stony indifference was of greater comfort to him. There was a familiar depth of hate to stay the unwanted rise of memories. Out here, just within the outstretched grip of Rauf’s kind sympathy, there was the entirety of things Malik did not wish to dwell on. In the eyes of the many men who looked at him (and what remained of him) there was an acknowledgement that made the loss of his brother somehow more _final_ and more _real_.

Hating Altair had sustained him on the long, fearful ride from Solomon’s Temple to Al Mualim. Hating Altair had brought a comfortable grayness that felt like peace in the surgery and in absence of that, Malik felt a dire shake start in the very center of his chest that came like gorge in his throat and pooling heat behind his eyes. 

“Malik,” Rauf said.

“Not now,” Malik said in return (quickly before he could say nothing). “I am on my way home.” He rose his hand to stave off any further attempts and was amazed at the steadiness of his arm.

Rauf looked caught between insisting on saying what he thought he must and relenting. At last he ducked his head and moved away from Malik and all the men that had been trained by the man seemed to move with him. The whole mass of bodies stepping one conscientious step away from him. 

Malik walked.

\--

By the time he had descended the long curved path from the mountain, his legs were rubbery from exhaustion and his whole body had reached a point of faint lightness. It seemed as if the ground itself had started to reach up and trip him while the quivering muscles of his body had simply ceased to cooperate with one another. Malik sat (fell) hard on a bench around a curve of earth and nearly tipped backward to land with an embarrassing sprawl of his remaining limbs. But a sudden presence at his back kept him upright, two hands sneaking under his arms to hold him in place as his visions swam in-and-out of clarity. There was a small crowd of women walking past talking fondly about their hopes and their homes. In the not-so-distant right he could hear the noise of children playing set against the business of life continuing on heedless of his own struggles. 

Malik tipped his head back against the solid body at his back, looked up at Altair’s impassive face looking down at him. “You have been following me.”

“You are a fool,” Altair said simply. Without inflection the words might have been equal parts affectionate and insulting. His two hands were tight in the folds of Malik’s clothes as he pulled him upright and sheltered him in a curve of his larger body. It was several feet, and dozens of witnesses, before they reached Malik’s humble home. Altair ducked them into the door (careful and aware of Malik’s injury) before dropping Malik into a nest of cushions. “While it escapes your attention, presently, you are now a reflection of my efforts. Regardless of what you think of me, I do not neglect my obligations.”

Safe inside, Altair retreated away from him, situating himself at the greatest possible distance and putting his back against a wall. He did not relax as he watched Malik but remain on painful alert. The conversation of days earlier drifted back through the woozy fog in his head. Altair’s offensive suggestions that Malik could not control himself (the implication that Malik did not feel he even had to try). It seemed ludicrous now: Malik was barely able to keep his head up to see Altair.

Malik laughed at him, “what danger do I pose you now?”

“None yet,” Altair conceded. “But your body will recover.” 

Malik deflated into the cushions, thought vicious things about Altair and his preoccupation with his own desirability. The thoughts knocked loosely around the space between his ears as he drifted in and out of an unhappy sleep.

\--

The day had faded to a grim dusk before Malik woke up again. Altair was sleeping along the opposite wall with his head pillowed on his arm and his legs pulled up as close to his body as he could manage. Even in sleep, the stone of his face did not relax but stay perpetually caught in the expression of nothing. Malik pushed himself to sitting, managed not to bash his left stump against anything. There was the wafting smell of another family’s dinner coming through the gaps in his poor little door and he opened his mouth to complain at his _wife_ about the lack of food when he caught sight of the bowl laying a considerate distance from his outstretched legs. It was covered with a cloth and it had since grown tepid. Malik looked at the rice with confusion, picked at it expecting to find a foul surprise. 

“I did not poison it,” Altair said. His eyes were open only a sliver but the rest of his body had not moved at all to give any indication of his waking.

“Where did you get it from?” Malik asked.

“I made it.”

The idea was laughable. They had not shared many missions but the few that Malik had suffered through with Altair in their youth was marked by the boy’s stubborn insistence that they would starve if Malik was not willing to prepare their meals. The few times Malik had refused, Altair had simply stolen or begged for food but he had never once shown an inclination toward cooking. “Perhaps I should put it out for the dogs then, see if they would eat it before I try.”

“If you like,” Altair said. He closed his eyes and it was impossible to tell from his breath and his stillness if he had simply gone back to sleep or if it were only waiting until Malik did before he moved. 

Malik ate because he was hungry and tired. He ate because his body would not recover without the nourishment. (He ate so that Altair would not be obliged to carry him to his own home a second time.) The food was bland-at-best but it was not offensive or poorly cooked. When it was gone, Malik got to his feet (thankful for the many years of his youth spent training to compensate for incapacitated limbs) and went outside. There was a short stool by the front door that he had often sat at to watch Kadar play when he was very young. The debris of the life he had lived was laying around the untidy front of his house. The clothes Kadar had washed were still hanging out to dry. They were stiff with sand and dirt and would need to be washed again. Malik considered the task with a frown at his lips and then considered how pleased his wife would be to have an occupation.

His _wife_.

The gift that Al Mualim had bestowed upon him for his _success_ at Solomon’s Temple. The precious opportunity to continue his family line when he was the last living member. _An honor_ , the old man had said into his fevered ear, if he was inclined to take it the way it was meant. If Malik did not want it, then Altair would be killed.

How satisfying it would have been to know that Altair was removed from this world and everyone safer for the lack of him. Nobody else would suffer because of his miserable arrogance, nobody else would be faced with his blatant disregard for the creed they were raised to believe in—nobody else would falter and fall under the weight of their brother (crippled and bleeding) as they ran for their lives and freedom. 

Kadar’s face (so pallid, so wan) was etched into the darkness of his closed eyes. The sound of his dry mouth moving, saying it was useless and that Malik had to go. Kadar who had taken his knife to bring an end to an argument he must have known Malik would never concede. It was little comfort to think that Kadar would have died even if they had escaped the twisted tunnels of Solomon’s Temple together. The knowledge that there was no saving his brother from the spray of vital blood that came from his injured leg in rapid pulses did not save him from the agony of knowing he’d failed. It did not ease the sight of his brother’s blood in a gaudy spill from his slit throat. 

It was done. There was nothing to be done about what had already passed. His sole concern now rested with finding the resolve to continue forward with what life he had left. Even that, the knowledge that he had lain so close to death (so recently) and been unable to give into the soft-simplicity of it, was no comfort. Death might have been a decent reward, better than this mockery of a privilege he did not want.


	5. Chapter 5

It was not the first (or surely the last) time that Altair was struck at how pointless Malik’s anger could be. An impressive force, surely, but without the focus of something or someone to funnel it into useful action it was a messy spill. This was the thought that occurred to him when he looked at the vicious waste of meat and vegetables that were spread across the filthy floor of Malik’s tiny home. 

This was the thought that rose in his throat when he looked up to take in the victorious glint in Malik’s weakened, dark eyes. 

_You are a child_ occurred to him too but with less violent insistence.

\--

The morning had started with Malik’s unhappy neighbor berating her ignorant child for the state of his face and hands. The boy (whose name was now burnt into the interior of Altair’s ears) was crying loudly in self-defense as his mother scrubbed him with chilled water and relentless authority. Her words were a long-long stream of piss-and-unhappiness before she slapped the boy for wiggling out of her grasp. Altair rolled onto his back and considered this aspect of his near future. Malik could be swayed to allow him to return to the brotherhood (through whatever means necessary) but once the present hurt of his losses faded the notion of a child would seize him. 

The deliberate, miserable twist of a fresh whine from the boy was what forced Altair up out of his bed. He looked at Malik, watched him sleep (deeply and without fever) and then slipped out of the house before he could wake and make another of his aimless demands. Outside, the sun had barely started to breech the horizon but there was enough light to see by as he climbed onto a barrel and looked toward the path to Masyaf. There was little activity (so far as he could see) as the men who guarded overnight looked longing for the men who would come to relieve them. The novices and the assassins that were not being sent out for missions were likely all tucked away into their quarters or their own lackluster little shacks like Malik’s. It would be easy enough to get in and out again before being discovered if he went now. 

Altair hit the ground with a quiet shush of noise. The boy sniffled miserably up at him—stripped naked and scrubbed red—while his mother despaired over his soiled clothes and his shameful future. She caught sight of Altair looking and offered him a twisted sneer. She said, “yes look at him, look at what you have to look forward to!” 

Altair snorted at her, at the idiot boy with his red ears and his slim naked shoulders ducked inward in shame. Then he turned and began an easy run toward the castle. He slid inside of the gates without notice and walked plainly across the open courtyard to where Rauf was standing by a display of practice swords. The look on his reddened face was one of plain-faced despair. “My sword,” Altair said, “has it been returned to you?”

Rauf seemed surprised to see him. Altair had made a point to avoid being seen when possible, hidden himself in small corners and at the very top of the towers where it was easy to be alone. Perhaps the last time Rauf had seen him was when Al Mualim had stripped him of his rank in front of an assembly of men who had barely contained their joy at the words. “Altair,” he said in a halting-confused tumble of syllables. He looked around, searching for witnesses or spies and then let out a soft breath. “I have it at my home as well as what few things I collected from your room. Abbas had already helped himself to a number of your smaller knives and freely invited himself into your room to rifle through your things. I was not able to save much.”

A week ago, Altair would have settled the disrespect with bloody warfare. There were a dozen scars (or perhaps more now) spread across Abbas’ worthless flesh that had come from the sharpened edges of his blades. A dozen more slights and insults against Abbas’ person that followed him like a shadow of shame. Now this, in the moments Altair was unable to defend himself, the man had sought to take his cowardly retribution. There was nothing Altair could do, nothing he could say against the man, and so he clenched his teeth against the many words that wished to slither out. 

“I have heard rumors that you are…assisting Malik,” Rauf said.

“If that is all you heard, my full shame has not yet been announced,” Altair said plainly. “Remind me where I can find your home, Rauf. I need to get my things.”

Rauf sent him back to the village, to his well kept home and his happy young wife (glowing with early pregnancy) doting over a much-loved son. Rana was a small, slim woman who looked out of place at her husband’s side. Blessed with a clear complexion, light eyes and dark hair she had been the subject of much lust when Altair was very, very young. His own father had even been known to watch her (long before she reached maturity) when she walked around the village alone. The look in his face much the same as the look in the eyes of a mindless animal. 

“Altair,” Rana said graciously when he came to her door. 

“I have come for my things,” he said plainly. And when she gave him the poor satchel that contained barely enough clothes to last him a single day and the scrap of a scarf he’d saved since childhood, he could not contain the curse. 

“Altair,” Rana said sweetly. She pulled a second bundle free from where it had been stashed behind a shelf and dropped it across a low table, pink with embarrassment at the clutter and clank of so much metal. “It is not secret that this is not what you wanted, but perhaps it is best. Perhaps if you give yourself to one you will not—”

Altair picked up his sword, the weapon he had won from Rauf when he was only sixteen. They had made a bet of it, out in the practice yard in the early morning. Rauf had declared that no novice—however skilled—had ever disarmed him. Altair had done it once and used the smarting pride that made Rauf’s face bluster and puff out to convince the man to bet his precious sword. Rauf was flat on his back with Altair’s foot on his chest and the blade of this sword against the side of his neck in seconds. His triumphant an equal mix of skill and the distraction of Altair’s oncoming fever blurring Rauf’s concentration. 

“You mistake me,” Altair said to stop her before her words grew more embarrassing. “I am not afraid of their desire. I have not fought against my _destiny_ but fought _for_ it. I am an assassin, it is what I was born and raised to be. It is what I will be again.” He sheathed the sword again.

Rana looked at him with a cool pity. Then she went around him to scoop the extra of her morning meal into a spare dish. She handed it to him with a sweet smile. “Rauf wants to speak to Malik but he is unsure of his welcome. Maybe you could sway him.”

Altair snorted at the very idea but he took the food. 

\--

When Altair had returned to Malik’s collapsing little house, the man had been awake but still laying where he had fallen asleep the night before. With his chin to his chest and his hair flattened by the weight of filth in it, his look matched the sour gleam in his eyes. He took a moment to look at the things Altair carried, lingered on the sword he set by his own poor bed, and the shirt he had pulled on before he left Rana’s house. 

“Do not leave without my permission,” Malik said (at last). “You are _my_ wife and you will do what I say.”

You are an owned thing, little better than a slave. (And what had Al Mualim said of Malik? That he could teach Altair obedience. Save for how Altair had learned obedience in his youth, long before Malik had even taken note of him.)

Altair finished laying his things down and set the bowl of food in the middle space between them. “Rana sent this for you.” It would not help Rauf’s attempts to see Malik in any way if Altair were to try to convince the man to bother to accept his presence. “We should attempt a frank conversation about our situation.”

“There is no need for a conversation. You are not ignorant of what it is expected of you simply because you managed to con Al Mualim into defying tradition all these years.” Malik kicked the bowl. “You will do what the others of your kind do.”

(There, again, those words. Those _awful_ words, as if Altair were made of different things than what made Malik. As if his body marked him as something inhuman so completely removed from the kind that Malik was that he could not be sorted into the same category. Those _words_.)

Altair thought then, of how aimless Malik’s anger was without the full strength of his focus to reign it in. He thought of many things in those few moments it took to lean his weight onto his knees and scoop the food back into the dish he had carried here. A sense of peace crept out from his chest (that safe space he had made for himself as a child, the last bit of himself that nobody had ever touched, something solely for himself). With it came a course of assurance, the feeling of complete freedom that was no longer his to experience. He stood, looked at Malik (sitting up now after a struggle), and threw the contents of the bowl on him and then threw the dish as well. “I do not serve ungrateful masters, _husband_.”

Oh-and-the beautiful fury on Malik’s face. That look of outrage that brought color back to his cheeks and vibrancy back into his eyes. The act was done and Altair was fully aware of the consequences and repercussions. He was not afraid of the insults and the meager humiliation that Malik would bestow upon him for this act of disrespect. He did not shy away from the man’s red face or the anger in his stare. They had been at odds for nearly the whole of their lives, set as rivals and enemies by Altair’s superior skill. Malik had looked at his face often enough to know when a battle had been lost, he must have grown comfortable with the feeling of failure and the shame that followed it.

“Clean your mess,” Malik hissed at him. “Prepare a meal for me.”

Altair did not look away from his eyes as he reached out a finger to swipe a stray bit of vegetable off Malik’s bare shoulder. He said nothing and Malik stormed away from him. 

\--&\--

By nightfall, Altair had finished cleaning the cushions and carpets and rearranged them. He had changed the bandages on Malik’s arm. He had prepared two meals and served them. He had washed the clothes when he was told. He had heated water for Malik to wash with. He had done everything he was told without saying a single word or offering even the slightest bit of fight. His every action was exactly what Malik demanded of him and the _blankness_ of his rote obedience built like a great fire in Malik’s gut. 

There was no fight to distract him when Altair refuse to fight back.

“Remove your clothes,” Malik said when the only light they had was a flickering lamp. The other homes around them had gone quiet save for the occasional yelp of an unhappy child that would not be soothed to sleep. Altair had been sitting, settled into the niche he’d made for himself some distance from Malik. 

There was no reaction to the words. Altair did not look up from cleaning his sword, his hands did not stop in their movements, and he said nothing. The moment dragged as if Malik had said nothing. When he opened his mouth to repeat the command, Altair finally looked up at him. “You are not well enough.”

“Perhaps not,” Malik said. “I want to see you, _wife_.”

Altair stood up, undid the laces of his shirt far enough to pull it over his head. His well-defined chest and stomach were as they had been every time Malik had seen them. His skin a washed-out color showing the truth of his fair-skinned mother. The few scars he had gotten were healed nicely into faint white lines here-and-there easily overlooked. His fingers were long and his palms were wide and strong. The flickering lamp light cast long shadows across his body, pooled light here-and-there again as Altair loosened his pants to step out of them. His legs were long and lithe, the muscles pronounced beneath his skin and the light brown hair that grew in sparse quantity along his thighs and calves. His feet were all bones and long toes (that Malik remembered from his earliest childhood, how the other boys teased Altair about his strange toes). There was a slight widening of his hips that set him apart from _men_ , an evolutionary trait to allow him to birth children. That slight difference had long brought attention to itself with the slight sway of his body when he walked, the enticing slide of his hips from one side to another. The lowered center of gravity his body granted him had made him better equipped to run and climb without the innate awkwardness of little boys growing used to bulky shoulders and skinny hips. His cock was limp and unremarkable, a trait shared by most omegas like him.

Altair turned for him, without being asked, spread his arms with mocking arrogance. His back was thickly muscled, his spine a dip that led straight down to his ass. The light caught there, outlined the pleasing roundness of it. After a pause, Altair turned back around and stood naked in front of him with that same stony disinterest. “Do I satisfy?”

“You suffice,” Malik said.

Altair was looking down at him, not even moving to cover his nakedness, but there was a queasy glint in his eyes. His teeth were clenched tight and Malik took a brief, cruel, joy in the motion. Then he waved his hand and looked away, gave Altair leave to dress himself if he wanted. 

\--

Rauf came in the morning, bearing gifts of food from his wife, and congratulations on their happy news. Al Mualim had finally (it seemed) announced that Altair had not only been stripped of his titles but also married to Malik. The vague whisperings of the village must have caught on fire at the confirmation of the obvious suspicion. 

“I could not have imagined this,” Rauf said.

They sat in the space in front of the house. Malik was tired of the stuffy interior and of the many things he had not brought himself to look at yet. Altair was still in there, huddling in his wretched hollow waiting to be given another task. His lack of freedom born with saintly silence that rankled and confused Malik. 

“I am not yet certain why I have allowed it,” Malik said. The morning air left his head feeling blissfully clear and the monotony of the conversation was something desirable to distract him. Rauf had come to see how Malik felt about attention being called to his happy news, but there would be others. 

Rauf looked back over his shoulder toward the interior of the house, perhaps to gauge Altair’s attractiveness and worth or perhaps to gauge the likelihood of vengeance for speaking at all. “I could think of one reason at least. You will be the subject of envy,” Rauf said after a pause. “Many of the men that were novices with you were distraught to learn they had missed their chance to…”

Altair moved then, came over to the door to stand there. His impressive height like a looming threat across Rauf’s back as a little sweat broke out across his forehead. His lips were caught in the same satisfied smirk that often took them whenever he killed men (whether or not they were the target). His fingers were coiled loosely at his side, tapping gently against his thigh as he looked at Rauf with all the singular focus of which he was capable. “Speak,” Altair said.

“It does not matter,” Rauf said. 

It clearly did matter to Altair. The unspoken words were caught in his fists and the bared-wetness of his clenched teeth. There (if only in that moment) was an emotion so great and so honest that it could not be contained behind the nothingness of his usual expression. The wounded pride was as obvious as the disgust that curdled in his flushing face. 

“Go into the house,” Malik said to Altair. He expected bland obedience, much the same as he had gotten over a list of mundane and menial tasks he’d assigned his _wife_ in the past days. The heated pinkness of defiance in Altair’s cheeks was the first sign of the man Malik had long hated, that arrogance that dared to defy their traditions and customs. The arrogance that brought them to such fantastic failure in Solomon’s Temple. Altair opened his mouth to protest, or to simply state that he would not be sent away, but Malik tipped his head and said, “ _go into the house,_ wife.”

“You should take care the words you choose to use,” Altair said in return. To him or perhaps to Rauf, before he turned with a graceful spin and retreated back into the interior of the house. He crouched by the wall, clearly listening to every shift-and-breath beyond the door. His technical obedience coupled with clear defiance was a much more welcome challenge than his placid demeanor of the days past.

“You will not be lacking in entertainment,” Rauf said. But he was not jovial now, but cowed by the physical threat that Altair still posed to him (or could pose if not held effectively in check). “There is quite a wager on who will master who in the coming days. It is not an easy task that you have undertaken.”

“That was given to me,” Malik corrected. “How are the novices, Rauf? I recall that you were despairing over their lack of skills before I left. Has it improved?”

There Rauf’s face had light again, he scoffed at the unhappy lot he’d drawn with this newest crop of young boys that knew nothing about how to handle a sword. “One of them knocked one of his own teeth out! If it had been a real sword he would be dead. I cannot recall any in your class being so incapable of common sense.”

“We were different,” Malik said. 

“You were divided,” Rauf said wisely. “The brotherhood cannot stand if divided, men cannot serve our creed without loyalty to one another but nothing is so great a motivator of awful, stupid boys as jealousy and spite. If Abbas and Altair had not provided such a powerful enemy for your brothers to unite against, all of you might have brained yourselves with practice swords.”

“Abbas is nothing,” Malik said with a wave of his hand. Whatever respect he still had for the man was a low groan of objection in his gut. Abbas was a brother and therefore deserved loyalty and respect but he was a foul-smelling creature with something awful in his face. His words were thick with slime when he spoke; the look in his face betraying the blackness that had filled him in the years since he had turned against Altair. “Perhaps you could invent an enemy to pit your novices against.”

“Boys are not moved by ideas, Malik. Do you recall the run your class was forced to complete after Abbas and Altair hid the training swords in your second year? Altair finished first despite the beating his father gave him. There was not a single boy that did not hate him for it.” The longing smile on Rauf’s face was disgusting in admiration for the misdeeds of two terrible, stupid boys. “I cannot invent such a deed.”

“Given how that tale ends, perhaps it is better if you don’t try.” 

Rauf shook himself out of memory and smiled again. “I should go. I have too much work to sit around. Congratulations, Malik. May you have many fat babies.” 

“Perhaps Rana could share some advice with Altair about how to prepare a meal worth eating,” Malik said as he stood with Rauf. “We would both be grateful.”

Rauf laughed and nodded. “You cannot put too much blame on Altair. He never had the benefit of a mother to teach him. I will send her.”

\--

It was after midday before Malik went back inside. Rana had come with a cheerful and friendly smile to share advice with Altair. He had towered over her, a head and a half taller and nearly that much broader than her slim body, as she advised him on the best way to prepare meals. He was attentive if not polite. They made a meal together while Malik alternated between dozing and walking in slow circles to work vitality and life back into his useless legs. 

The sun was high in the sky and the heat of the day was an oppressive grip that drove him back into the shadowed interior of his home. Altair was waiting, kneeling on the edge of Malik’s bed (closer in that moment than he had ever been to him before) watching as Malik took his time about sitting. When Malik was reclined against the pillows, looking right back at Altair’s intense stare, the man moved forward. His long-lithe body stretching out toward him, both of his hands catching at Malik’s waist to pull him flat against the cushions. Altair had one hand denting a pillow by Malik’s right shoulder and one hand sneaking up to grab his jaw and pull his attention into a focused point. 

“Listen carefully, _husband_. I will give you what the law commands I give but if I hear you speak of what you do to me in your bed they will be the last words you speak.” His fingers were digging into Malik’s flesh, the blunt tips of his nails to the point of tearing his skin. Then he relented, the warning said, and was half the way to escaping from Malik’s bed before the words had been fully understood.

“That is what scares you? That others will know you have been fucked?” Malik said. “I assure you, much discussion has already been had about the matter of bedding you. It was a frequent, _lengthy_ debate after your sex was revealed.”

“Lucky you,” Altair said darkly as he retreated to his place. “One can only hope the experience matches the many fantasies you’ve had. You should rest or you will never have the energy to find out.”

“Name a man and I will tell you how he would like to fuck you,” Malik said. He pushed himself up to sitting. Aware (however dimly) of the unnecessary cruelty in the words. Aware (dimly) that were he a better man he would be ashamed of himself for the taunt. 

Altair set his back against the far wall, head tipped against it and eyes closed. One of his knees was up and one of his arms rested against it as his fingers flopped uselessly open and he said, “Kadar, then.”

Oh-and-Malik hated him so hot and so bright and so completely that it was a metal taste in his mouth. Altair’s eyes were narrow glitters from this distance, almost golden, as his lips quirked up into a smug grin. The expression a perfect mimicry of the expression on Malik’s face. The returned taunt a reminder of how often they had lapsed into this useless fight. But it was far too late to back out, too late to find a sense of morality in the broken things between them. 

“Abbas,” Malik said back (without a shiver in his voice when there was a quake in his chest). “He wanted you like a bitch in heat, bent over with your face in the dirt. He laughed at _you_ , at how you would howl and beg for him. He _laughed_ at your bruised knees and your slapped skin and how grateful you would be when he’d shown you what a man was truly capable of doing.”

Altair laughed then. “A man with so small a cock should not talk so loudly.” But he could not set the stone of his face firmly into place. The indifference was crooked on his face and at odds with the twisting churn of disgust that ran through his body. 

“Yet you speak as if everyone should listen,” Malik countered.

At this, Altair sighed again. “Sleep, Malik. Dream of the things you do not yet have the strength to do.” Then he laid down and rolled so his back was to Malik and the utter lack of threat he posed in his current state.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely detest Al Mualim. Beyond all reason. Hate him.

Life persisted with monotonous regularity. Altair did whatever Malik’s petty mind could manage to think of. He beat rugs and cleaned walls. He prepared meals. He fluffed cushions and fetched water. He sat without moving (for hours) while Malik spoke to an ever-rising tide of well-wishers that visited once or twice a day to lay congratulations but never condolences at Malik’s feet.

It was as if, through power of will alone, Malik had managed to banish any mention of his brother. Men and boys who had cause to mourn their losses came to Malik and found the gaping-black-nothing where they should have found grief. They talked happily of Malik’s good fortunate at having been honored with Altair-the-widely-coveted and how Malik was sure to have many fat babies. 

\--

Obedience had long-since been an absolute reality of his life. Altair’s father had been an Assassin, frequently absent, but a far less impressive and far stricter one than Altair could bring himself to be. The man had thrived on the black-and-white of laws, swift and merciless punishment came for wrongs and a thankless acknowledgement for rights. Altair had grown up in his father’s home for many years before he was gratefully removed to live among the other poor novices of his age.

But his father’s justice followed him. His bellowing rage that struck him in the face and beat him until his legs were weak. Altair had stolen all the training swords with Abbas to prove that they could. It was a child’s clever notion of proving their worth that had been met with anger-not-pride. His father did not care that he, a skinny novice barely into his second year of training, had snuck past an endless stand of guards and removed several dozen swords without notice, but that he’d had the arrogance and stupidity to even try it. 

Good-boys-fell-in-line, was his father’s manner of thinking. He’d grabbed Altair by the back of his neck when he’d finished beating him (where anyone could see) and dragged him back to his shaking feet. “You think you are so great, you are nothing without your brothers.” 

Altair had blood in his mouth when he fell into line with his brothers, sent out to run miles through the mountains. They threw rocks at him when they thought they were safe from the eyes of their elders. Altair ran-and-ran-and-ran.

\--

In the poor market of the village (so much less impressive than the souk at Jerusalem) Altair was picking through the offerings. The dull thought of what he could prepare for Malik a blackening rage set somewhere just beneath his resolve to win out against Malik’s pointless anger. It was a stupid battle of wills that drove him to the market at the command of his _husband_ ; a stupid, stubborn arrogance that drove him to prove he could not be broken by these petty things.

Then there was a hand at the back of his loose shirt, the rough yank of someone pulling him backward. The loose laces stuck at his throat and he lashed out with instinct, throwing his elbow toward the source of the attack. It did not connect but the grip released. Altair turned and Abbas stepped sideways away from him. 

His round-wet-eyes were rolling around in their sockets, his smile a scowl as he did an assessing circle around Altair. “Altair the great,” he said. “Your husband must be poor indeed if you are still wearing another man’s clothes.”

“The clothes I wear are mine,” Altair said.

“The clothes you wear are an _assassin’s_.” Abbas conceded the point willingly enough. Did not bother to fight it any further and Altair was gritting his teeth (thinking about the things this man had stolen from him) as Abbas stepped backward from him. A woman passed between them, ducking around Altair to speak to the merchant behind him. 

“Go away, Abbas,” Altair said.

Abbas clucked his tongue in disapproval. “You would speak to me in such a way? What would your husband think of your behavior? I thought he was meant to teach you better.” He rested a hand against the hilt of his sword rising from its scabbard at his side. The healthy weight on his bones made his body roll with any slight motion. He made a display out of leering at Altair then flicked his eyes back up at his face. “Perhaps he has not yet been well enough to begin your lessons? Perhaps he is not enough of a man to manage it? You should have been given to a whole man, perhaps several if—”

There was a scream to his right but it was not a sound ripped from Altair’s throat. He struck Abbas across his stupid mouth, the wicked-red-slash of his mouth behind the ugly fur of his beard. Abbas countered and they fell into fighting the same as they had since they were boys. The advantage this man had over Altair (that perhaps no other living man had) was the long familiarity with fighting him. Abbas was not superior but well-taught. 

Abbas was also armed. He drew a short blade and smiled with pink-teeth when Altair scuttled backward away from the blade. The crowd around them was thickening, guards were being shouted for and a small cluster of low-ranked assassins were watching with curious stares and indecisive half-motions. “You will never learn,” Abbas said to him.

Altair could have won against him. It would not even have been a difficult victory (even unarmed, even underdressed, even with the many spectators) save for the sharp pull at his right arm. All the white noise of many voices came back into sudden focus as _words_ and _reproaches_. Altair looked at Malik (summoned, almost assuredly, by a concerned citizen). There were no words he could have forced from his throat and across his lips that would have offered adequate defense for himself, none that he would have admitted to.

Malik hit him across the head and Altair allowed it.

“He attacked me without provocation,” Abbas announced.

“I doubt it,” Malik said evenly. “Do not touch my wife, Abbas. Do not speak to him.” Then he tightened his hand on Altair’s elbow and pulled him out of the crowd. He did not drag Altair but the anger that tightened his grip like talons also quickened his steps. They made it to the door of Malik’s poor house and Altair turned his body so that when he was pushed he went through it easily. But Malik crashed through it embarrassed rage. “You do not have the right to—”

“I have the right to defend myself!” Altair shouted back. “Or should I have allowed him to tell anyone that would listen you don’t have enough of a cock to _teach me my place_. Should I have let him pull at my clothes and leer at my body? Would that please you?”

Malik laughed at him.

Altair wanted to hit him so badly it was a taste in his mouth. The law was solidly on Malik’s side and there was chance of leniency on his behalf after the fight with Abbas. But that laugh grated at him, pricked-and-pulled at his skin until his body felt misshapen by it and his stomach (queasy at best) was a rolling broil of bile. 

“Now that is an idea,” Malik said (oh-so-thoughtfully). “Perhaps you would learn something from my cock you cannot seem to grasp from my words.”

Oh-and-everything in Altair’s body went cold.

“Is this fear a recent development, Altair? What must your childhood have been like before you knew what you were and that your own cock was useless?” Malik’s words were _cutting_ , clearly an attempt to salt a perceived wound. He drew close enough to examine Altair’s face as he might have looked at a poorly drawn map. 

“If you require something of me, speak it plainly,” Altair said without look at Malik. His vision blurred out from the effort of looking at anything but his _husband_. The words themselves, once spoken, were like rocks in his mouth while the acid burn of sickness rose in the back of his throat. When he did look at Malik, focus on his face, there was no sign of desire there. “You should let me wash first. I am covered with Abbas’ filth.”

“I do not want you,” Malik said. Then, “stay here.” He turned and left.

\--

There was not much in Malik’s house. What had survived his parent’s occupation must have been sold in times of need, stolen while Malik was absent, or given to people with greater needs. There were two beds, an assortment of small things and clothes tucked neatly into baskets. Food was fetched daily from the markets, prepared and served with ancient dishes. 

The home might as well have been empty for all the evidence of living missing from it. If Kadar had kept things (and he must have, he seemed like the sort that would) they must have been tucked away in the barracks with the other novices. Malik owned nothing except for his clothing and his weapons.

Altair’s small sack of things was hardly an increase, just a barely noticeable lump near the wallow where he slept. He paced for a moment, spun on his heels when he reached one wall and marched toward the opposite. The sounds of life ebbed and flowed behind the walls, growing in intensity as a crowd of assassins headed out toward the gates. They were young, most of them making far too much noise to be considered experienced. Altair put his back against the wall and crouched low enough to pick up his sword. Put set the tip of it against the floor and leaned his forehead against it.

\--

Malik entertained several men during the afternoon; most of them brief interactions. Rauf came with greetings and a cautious offer of an already cooked meal. He did not directly say he had found out about the altercation in the market but it must have made its way through the whole of the village and the castle at the top of the mountain. They talked at length about the poor state of the young novices, Rauf edging closer-and-closer to asking for something he couldn’t seem to get out of his mouth. Malik calmly replying to only what was spoken and not what was left unasked.

It was dusk when Malik came in again. His face covered with an overgrowth of beard, the color in his skin healthy despite the length of the day. He offered what little remained of the food to Altair (and he took it because he was hungry) before sitting on his bed. 

“Eat and wash yourself,” Malik remarked.

Altair said nothing. He ate and when he was finished he put the dish with the other poor collection of things that took up space near the door. Malik was half-asleep in that time, healthier but still not _healthy_. Altair crouched in his place by the wall (barely breathing) and waited for his sleep to deepen as the day slowly sank into night.

\--

Altair had only been given permission to ‘wash himself’. It was only by sheer technicality that he climbed to the roof of Malik’s miserable hovel and watched the last of the fading daylight slowly leave the sky. He stood in the gathering dark and drew in the cool air the last of the villagers secured themselves in their little homes. The neighbor child was begging after something to eat and his Mother’s answer was a cuff against his head. The market, in the near distance, was a dead spot. 

He stretched. At thirteen he had discovered he was an omega and he had known—a shrinking, terrified little boy—that his body was never going to be his own again. Omegas were mothers-and-wives, their bodies specifically built to satiate men’s desires and birth squealing infants. Winning Al Mualim’s favor had secured him the ownership of his own fate but not his own body. The only sense of peace he had was in the complete mastery of his muscles and bones. These parts of him that solely his, these sore and neglected parts of him that had not been given a proper workout in _weeks_. 

Every stretch brought him a deepening sense of peace. By the time he felt warm and limber, the sky was black and the first of the stars were shining suspicious eyes down at him. He rolled his head side-to-side before setting his feet to the unstable roof and leaning into a long run. 

Oh and he ran-and-he-ran-and-ran.

\--

Altair returned with cold water still dripping from his hair. His shirt was hanging from his fist and he carried his boots under one of his arms. Malik was sitting on the stool by the door, clearly waiting for his return.

“I am clean,” Altair said. He threw his shoes in through the open door and tossed his shirt onto the low bench that sat on the opposite side of door from where Malik sat. The dread that had haunted him in the afternoon (hot and liquid) had faded into a cold certainty. A task that must be accomplished and should be done soon. 

“You must be _thoroughly_ clean,” Malik said. 

Altair neither agreed nor disagreed. He went inside to stretch again. His muscles were still warm from a long run but it was a pleasant ache to feel. By the time he’d lit a lamp, Malik had come back inside to settle himself on his bed. Altair laid out on his belly, put his hands against the dirty floor and started a long set of push-ups. 

Malik’s low sound interrupted his concentration, drew his attention to where the man was sitting back against a pile of cushions against the wall with his hand tracing the obvious shape of his stiffening cock through his pants. Altair finished his set before pushing himself up to his feet. Malik watched him with heavy-lidded eyes as Altair stripped out of his pants. He stuck his fingers into his mouth as Malik managed his own pants to pull his dick free. 

When his fingers were slick-and-dripping he stepped across Malik’s legs with his back to the man. He got down on his knees, his free hand against Malik’s knee and reached back to rub the spit against his hole.

“I thought you got wet like women,” Malik said. He ran his hand down Altair’s back, rubbed his thumb through the spit and then into him. “Ah,” he said (oh-so-quietly), “but you are wet here.”

It was not fear (or revulsion, really) that made him flinch at the touch. Altair had been well educated in the carnal uses of his body. “I thought you were going to fuck me,” Altair said in return. He brought his hand up to his mouth again, spit into it once-twice and then reached behind him to spread the poor slickness over Malik’s dick. His body provided its own lubrication but in absence of his fever, he had never had the desire for any man great enough to produce it. Malik’s fingers pulled free of him and Altair shifted back onto the head of his cock, concentrating solely on accepting the sensation of being opened. When Malik was fully inside, Altair set his knees against the ground, stilled long enough to find some calm resolve to continue and then began to move.

\--&\--

Malik could not stop the groan or the instinctive lift of his hips and saw no reason to be sorry for either. He expected Altair to stay still until given directions, or to ignore him entirely, but he did not expect the way he started moving on his own. Malik clutched at his skin as the man built a rhythm from a slow-rock to a steady beat rising and lowering, pushing back to take Malik in as far as he could before pulling halfway off and dropping again. It was a fast-punishing-rhythm, not so unlike the determined rise and fall of his body while he did push-ups in quick succession. Malik was scratching at his slick skin in a matter of moments (if that long) his breath tight in his chest. The throb of his left shoulder rubbing against the cushions was a persistent but ignorable ache. 

The wet heat moving on his cock and the flex of Altair’s whole body bending to his will was impossible to think around. He reached an orgasm with his fingernails drawing blood and his teeth clenched tight against the shaking moan that rattled up from somewhere low in his gut. Altair slowed, rocked against him for another impossible matter of seconds before stopping. Malik was panting too heavily to hear anything but the cacophony of his own body’s various complaints. Altair pulled up and off him, the slick sound of his body pulling free an obscene noise in the quiet. 

Malik’s head was spinning. Altair was just there, looking down at him from his full height. “Fool,” he said. “You will sleep now, at least.” 

Malik would have said something back to him, but he was _exhausted_ and uncomfortable. It took too much concentration to wiggle himself into a position better for his aching shoulder and to tuck himself back into his pants. By the time he finished, Altair was dressed again and holding out a cup of water. There was no embarrassment or new hatred on his face but a dull look. “You were better in fantasy,” Malik said

Altair shrugged. “If you do not want to be disappointed twice, wait for my fever.” Then he shook the cup. “Drink, sleep.”

\--

In the morning, Malik was summoned to the castle. He dressed in his assassin’s robes (freshly washed by his devoted wife) with some assistance. The mostly-empty left sleeve was pinned up out of the way and Altair sat on his knees in front of him to shave his face (a task Malik could have accomplished and Altair was displeased to do). “Stay here,” Malik said. “Do not follow me.”

Altair said nothing. 

The walk back up to the castle was only slightly more pleasant than the one he had taken away from it. Out of constant nagging unwanted presence of Altair in the house, the world was too big and filled with too many distractions. This was the path he had walked with his brother—jumping with excitement—when he’d been summoned and sent on the task to retrieve the treasure. These were the same rocks their feet displaces. This the same guard that had smiled a greeting at them. 

In the yard, the same novices were groaning in defeat while Rauf yelled at them about incompetence and the older boys and men laughed at their failure. This massive castle was the same it had been when Kadar was clinging to his arm asking if they were going to be sent on a mission together. 

Now there was only him, lopsided and incomplete, amid a sea of well-wishes and congratulations. If his brothers missed or cared that Kadar had not returned it did not show on their faces. (But Malik could not have handled it, couldn’t have withstood the sympathy they might have tried to share.) He went in through the wide doors at the front of the castle and was led up the steps to where Al Mualim stood looking out through the window. 

“Malik,” he said warmly without turning. When he did turn the long black robe he wore swished around his legs and his weathered old lips pulled up into a genuine smile. His arms were behind his back and he stepped up to stand in front of him. “Are you healing well?”

“Yes,” Malik said.

“Yes,” Al Mualim repeated. He put one hand on Malik’s freshly shaved face and ran an appraising thumb across his cheek. “Your color is good and your eyes are bright again. Have faith that the full of your strength will return to you as long as you care for yourself.”

“I have a wife to care for me,” Malik said, “one that you saw fit to give me.”

Al Mualim’s smile grew ever so slightly more pointed on the edges. His hand went back behind his back as he nodded his head in acknowledgment. “I trust your wife is well. Tell me, has he abandoned his hope for returning to the brotherhood?”

“Why would he have any such hope?”

Al Mualim made a motion with both of his hands, as if he could grasp sense out of the illogical notion. “Altair has saved our brotherhood from certain death,” (no he had saved this man, and no other), “his service has not been without problems but it has been faithful. If he can truly learn from and understand the error of his deeds, he could be a valuable asset again.”

Malik did not speak for fear of the disrespect that was boiling out of his chest at the very thought of Altair reinstated. It was an insult too great to bear from this man who favored Altair over so many others. If Altair knew there was a possibility of returning to the brotherhood, all of his obedience was subject to the idea that he could ever prove himself sufficiently enough that Malik would allow it. (Oh and what a thought.)

Al Mualim made that motion again and then (with a slight reproach in his voice), “that decision lays with you, Malik. I have watched you grow from a young boy. I have seen you succeed against terrible odds and we have all shared the pride of your accomplishments. You are a steady, righteous man. The sort that we might all aspire to do. Your path has never been _easy_ but you have walked it with honor.” He turned in a small circle as he said this and was facing Malik again when he said, “I know, as many of your brothers at Masyaf know, the grief that your loss must bring. I have faith that you will show the same strength and determination to overcome this loss as you have so frequently in the past.”

“Is that why I have been saddled with an ungrateful wife?” Malik asked.

“It is why you have been _gifted_ with the possibility of a family. Your sons will bear your name and your legacy, Malik. There is no greater miracle of which mankind is capable than the miracle of birth.” Then he relented, as if he were aware how unwanted the notion of sharing _sons_ with Altair was. Instead he said, “I need a man in Jerusalem. Haydar can no longer manage the bureau. It has fallen into disrepair and our brothers sent there have no reliable Rafiq to guide them.”

The very thought of returning to Jerusalem sent a strange quake through his body. It was not fear (precisely) and it was not hurt (exactly) but some unnamed thing. Malik licked his lips and searched for a reaction that was appropriate to the situation and barely managed, “I am not certain I deserve the faith you put in me.”

“You do,” Al Mualim said bluntly. “You will leave tomorrow, take your wife with you, and send me a message when you have settled. I will send correspondence with further directions once you are there.” Then it was finished, the matter settled, and Al Mualim dismissing him with a wave of his hand and the most insincere of smiles. 

\--

Malik walked back to his home with a blankness filling his head and the weight of a Rafiq’s black robe heavy on his shoulders. He had waved away the attempts of the women to pin the sleeve up out of the way and it swung loosely against his side (straight through the phantom feeling of his arm). He rounded a curve in the path to where his home stood and saw a group of boys shouting taunts at his front door. The words were not clear at the distance but the meanness of them was evident enough. One of the larger ones found a dirt clod and threw it toward the doorway. 

There was a deathly silence in the aftermath, the youngest and smallest of the boys all turning their head toward their intrepid-and-brave leader. Malik could not hear Altair say anything but it was evident from the leeching color on the children’s face that he had said or done something. The littlest one turned to run, his mouth open with a screech as the others stood in defiance. The rock that struck the largest one’s face was no bigger than a nut, but it was aimed and thrown with such precision that it split the child’s cheek open across the bone. The boy fell into the dirt with a scream of shock.

Malik stepped up to the side of the house to find Altair just inside of the doorframe with two or three such dirt clods smashed against the front of the house. He had a second rock in his hand and the infuriating grin pulling his lips out of shape. “Go on,” Malik shouted at the boys. “You should not be here!” Then he looked at Altair who dropped the rock back on the ground. “You should not have scarred the boy.”

“Perhaps it will teach him the manners nobody taught you,” Altair said. He turned and went back into the house. 

“Where is my dinner?” Malik asked.

“I was not permitted to leave this room,” Altair said. “You said I should stay here and I stayed.” 

Malik was _tired_. He sat on the stool outside of his house and looked at the detailed stitching on his robe and tried to piece together the full extent of this promotion. “Perhaps you can be taught.” 

Altair’s laugh was bitter and unexpected. He came back to the doorway and looked at the robe Malik wore: his face a mask of shock and silence. It was a blissful moment of quiet before Altair’s mouth closed his and his jaw twitched with the effort of his teeth clenching. “You are rewarded for incompetence and injury but I was made _this_?” he shouted at him.

“If this is to be an exchange for the life of my brother it is a poor one!” Malik shouted back at him. He had made no promises not to strike Altair (but remembered the warning through the fog of a fever) but it still felt like breaking his word when he hit him (again). Altair reacted instantly, years-and-years of training snapping through him until he had Malik pinned by the throat against the interior wall. His eyes were narrow and _murderous_ as he held a knife out to the side (seemingly produced from nowhere). It was not moral indecision that stayed his hand because he was capable of killing a man for less reason than the one that Malik gave him.

Altair’s mouth opened and no sound came out. His hand loosened but did not move away and for all the shiver of effort in his arms he could not bring himself to lower the knife. “There is no exchange great enough to equal the loss of Kadar,” Altair said, at last. He stepped back. 

“On that, at least, we can agree,” Malik said. “You were made _this_ because it was what you were born to be. You should never have been allowed to believe otherwise. Perhaps if Al Mualim had saw fit to make you obey the rules in your youth, you would not think so lightly of them now. Make my dinner.” He shook the robe off and rubbed his left shoulder where it had been jostled, closed his eyes when he heard Altair move and set to do the stretches to help the ache. “We are to leave in the morning.”

“To go where?” Altair demanded.

“Jerusalem.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Go away,” Malik said to him after Altair served him his meal. His hand waved him off as he sat alone in the hollow home that he’d shared with Kadar. It was precious-precious freedom to go and do whatever he wished, and yet his feet stumbled at the threshold. Malik had not mourned his brother (had not mourned the loss of his own arm and lifestyle) but persisted with angry denial in the many long days they had been held prisoner together. It was evident from the blankness in his face, the stillness of his body, that denial would serve him no longer. 

Altair thought of many things—stupid, pointless things—and none of them seemed worthy of being spoken. Grief, like all pain, had to be given time to be felt or it would fester and rot. It was better that Malik had finally realized he could not hold it off forever. And this was the reassurance he gave himself as he left. Out in the open air it was simple-and-delicious selfishness that drove him out of the miserable village, beyond the massive gates, and into the world beyond. 

He walked and ran and climbed and lay in the dirt and watched the sky.

\--

It was just before nightfall before he returned. He had expected nothing, exactly, to have changed in his absence. His whole body was humming with the satisfaction of having been pushed to the extent of its endurance. He was hungry but it was an idle thing in his belly as he walked. There was peace in him and it numbed everything to a point of nothingness. 

Then the smell of dates, an oily-distasteful scent, that seized him by the bowels as he passed an open window and tore into his sense of peace with such precision that he stumbled around the corner of a building and lost what remained in his stomach. His open-palm (scratched from hours of climbing) pressed to the still-warm side of the building as his eyes closed and his stomach clenched tight around _nothing_. His shoulders were quaking and Altair beat his fist against the side of his own thigh.

_Dates_. It had been the same before, the instant queasy feeling that nagged him for weeks before he finally had given in and gone to see Al Mualim complaining of ill-health. (And what had the old man said with his hand on Altair’s shoulder, what had he told him with their heads ducked together and a glowing knot of terror growing in his stomach.)

_Stupid, stupid, stupid_. He counted the number of days, the passage of the weeks and was obliged to fold forward and vomit yellow-bile (thick and foaming). The cold sweat on his body went through to his bones. 

\--

Malik’s grief had not destroyed his home. It had removed what little character the home still possessed and stacked it neatly by the door for easy transfer to the horses they would take in the morning. The dishes had disappeared but there was food left sitting on the stool outside the door (for Altair, presumably). 

“How nice of you to return,” Malik said. He was lying across his bed, as if asleep, and in the dimness it was difficult to make out the shapes of his face. 

Altair said nothing, went to his own sleeping place and found his sword. It was a poor attempt at finding the peaceful numbness of before. The sword did not assure him that he was the master of his own body but reminded him that he could seek (vengeance) justice when necessary. Justice, itself, could only be sought after the wrongs had been committed. There was a powerlessness in justice, the knowledge that it was useless against men who weren’t afraid of consequences. 

Powerlessness offended him. 

“I cannot sleep,” Malik said.

Altair’s fingers clenched all the harder around the scabbard of the sword. His heart surged in his chest before he could calm it again. “Speak plainly,” he said. 

“Fuck me to sleep,” Malik said. As if he had the right to be offended at the words, to be bored of Altair’s petty act of useless defiance. Without the lamplight, whatever expression he wore was neatly anonymous. Altair rose and stripped out of his clothes, went over to Malik’s bed and felt for him with his hands, defining the outline of his shoulders and his chest and his hips. Malik had already pulled his cock free but it wasn’t fully hard yet. 

Altair took the same position of the night before, but shoved Malik’s hand away when he tried to touch him. He thought there might have been a fight but Malik relented. Altair stroked him to hardness with spit-covered-fingers and then fucked him until he was gasping for breath like a fish on land. After, when Malik was groaning with exhaustion and renewed pain from having his sore shoulder jostled, Altair stayed at his side long enough to ask: “what did Al Mualim tell you about me? What did he say about my… _fertility_ when he gave me to you?”

Malik was too tired to think of clever-half-truths. He said, “nothing.”

There was a small comfort in that, at least.

\--

Malik slept long into the morning. Altair piled his things by the door and slipped out. The market was only beginning to come to life and the still dreary merchants were busy setting out their goods. Altair bought a fresh meal for Malik. He returned it to the home to find the man still sleeping.

The castle at the top of the mountain was coming to life by now. The rush of novices and low-level assassins would provide enough cover for him to sneak through. Altair knew where the surgeons kept their medicines, knew they would be preoccupied with breakfast and that the barren women that tended the sick would be tired from a long-night and anxious to be replaced with fresh staff. 

It was simple enough to slip in and steal what he needed, easy enough to slip out again.

\--

Malik was awake and impatient to leave when Altair returned. The impatience earned him a withering glance at delaying them with his absence (you should have been here when I woke, Altair) but it was a mild reproach. Malik did not ask where he’d been or what he had done. They left the village with silence.

\--

They stopped early. Riding obviously caused Malik discomfort and pain made him more unpredictable and _mean_. They made their way to a semi-permanent camp often used by the other assassins and Malik paced as he rubbed his sore shoulder and did the stretches he had not been as diligent in performing as the surgeon might have liked. 

Altair hunted for food, and cooked it, and brewed his own little cup of foul poison. Malik was distracted by his own pain, grumbling about the horse being poorly trained and the ground being more uneven than he remembered. The distraction worked for him; provided him enough time to drink the foul concoction without notice. When it was gone (and the awful taste stuck in his mouth) Altair interrupted Malik’s pacing-tirade.

“Food?” he said.

“What is that terrible smell?” Malik demanded.

“The wind.”

Malik sat across the small fire from him, crossed his legs and took the dish when it was offered to him. He picked at the delicate roasted flesh of the bird Altair had shot and happened upon something else that offended him. “Why would you not cook for me before?” 

“You were of lower rank than me.” 

“Why do you cook for me now?” 

“Because I am obligated to do so,” Altair answered. He had not had the time to work out how to sway Malik into allowing him back into the ranks of the brotherhood, had no reason to believe that it would easy to do when the man had only just begun to allow himself to feel the loss of his brother. Returning to Jerusalem would put a healthy distance between Altair and the humiliation of being married off to this man but it would not provide an escape from the marriage. 

(It did not allow him to escape the unwelcome thing that had been growing, unnoticed, or the fact that he now had to kill it.) 

“How obedient of you,” Malik said.

Altair scoffed. His throat burned from the awful taste of the poison. It gurgled in his stomach but there was no pain or sickness (yet). “You mistake the right to make my own choices for disobedience, Malik. This is the first time you have ever held any rank or power over me. I have served the brotherhood with obedience and loyalty for years, my rank attests to that.”

“Your actions do not.”

Altair did not argue it with him. There was no peace to be made between them on the matter of his actions at Solomon’s Temple. Malik had the benefit of personal loss, the blame assigned to Altair by Al Mualim and moral righteousness to convince him his own position was the only correct one. They ate in silence.

\--

It was not fully dark yet when Malik (out of distractions for himself) said, “come.”

Altair doused the fire and stirred it. “Are you _able_?” He looked at Malik sitting up, watching him as he worked. He was ragged with hurt and exhaustion. A pitiful example of a man with his scruffy face and the unfelt sorrow still stuck in his eyes. Altair settled his weight onto his knees as he looked at him. “Fucking me will not make you forget.”

“Fucking you was the prize I was given. I need no other reason.”

Altair stripped his pants off and went over to Malik, made to turn around away from him but the man stopped him with his hand on Altair’s wrist. Altair curled his lip but stepped across Malik’s legs and knelt across his lap facing him. “Should I cover my face?”

Malik touched his chest through the shirt, down his stomach and flipped the long ends of it out of his way to brush his fingers across Altair’s dick. He had no expression on his face as he did it, only clinical disinterest before he moved his fingers back. Altair licked his own fingers but Malik pushed the tip of his first finger inside of him (dry and unwelcome) and said, “the others said you would be wet.”

Altair rubbed the spit around his hole, knocked Malik’s hand away and then dragged it up to his own to drool onto them. “That only happens during my fever.” Malik pressed two fingers into him and Altair had to bite the inside of his cheeks to keep his face expressionless. 

“What is that? You said it before, what is your fever?” His fingers slid in and out of Altair with a tacky drag before he pushed them as deep as he could manage and moved them around inside. He was far more interested in looking between Altair’s legs than looking at his face. 

“Omegas have them. They come weeks before we bleed. It,” Altair’s fingers tightened into fists as Malik started fucking his fingers up into him again, his knuckles and the bulk of his hand knocking against him with painless little thrusts. If it was an attempt to arouse him, it was a poor attempt. “isn’t a true fever. It is just,” the blinding urge to find any man willing to fuck, the _need_ to have a cock inside of him as the base-and-primal urge to use his body for its intended purpose. “The only time I will ever _want_ you to fuck me. Any story you have heard of an omega wet-and-begging for cock was the story of a fever. When mine comes, you will give me whatever I ask in exchange for the privilege of fucking me.”

Malik laughed at that idea. He pulled his fingers free and Altair bared Malik’s cock, spread a generous puddle of spit on it before he lifted up. Facing forward, everything was crowded. Malik was sitting up, his hand free to touch him wherever he wanted and his eyes intent and obvious as they watched. His face was pink with anticipation even before Altair started to sink down onto him. “I have the privilege of fucking you, I have no desire to give you what you want.”

Altair tried to lean backward but Malik caught his shirt and held him in place. There, at last, his eyes lifted up to Altair’s face. The smugness of his sexual dominance providing a poor cover for the pain and hurt that twisted his face out of shape. “You’re a dog,” Altair said to him. “And like a dog, you will do anything to _mount_ me when I’m a bitch in heat. I’ve seen what it does to men. I do not even have to fuck them and they fall on their faces with stupidity. Instinct is _powerful_ , Malik.” It was difficult to move with Malik so close to him, difficult to find the balance to set the rhythm that would get him off (fast-and-easy). 

“I have witnessed no such thing. I have known you all our lives and never felt it.”

“Fevers are predictable,” Altair said blandly. “No reason to provide you and your _kind_ the opportunity to take what wasn’t yours to have.” He grabbed Malik’s wrist and hissed, “let me go.”

“I know what you want,” Malik said. “I will never give it.” Then he let go of Altair (assured of his own victory). His smile, the meanness of his victory, a constant assault. 

\--&\--

They woke, ate and mounted the horses in the morning. The awful smell that Altair attributed to the breeze the day before returned and lingered, hanging in the air around them like a fog. Malik put distance between them to be rid of it and watched Altair in an attempt to figure out where the foul smell came from. 

The rode for hours, jostled along at an easy speed as the growing pain in his shoulder and back slowly became unbearable. When he could take it no longer, they stopped. 

\--

The smell came again, stronger-and-blacker, after dark. The fire that Altair had built earlier was a low burn of embers that provided little light and less heat. “What is that?” Malik asked. He was uncomfortable in his body, unable to unclench his left fist (that he did not even possess anymore) with an ache in his shoulder that he could not stretch out. 

“Nothing important,” Altair said. He said the words at the end of gulping something and shuffled around on his own side of the fire to find a comfortable way to lay. The noise stopped as his body stilled, as if he were aware that Malik was watching him. His back was to Malik, his hands halfway to the ground to finish clearing his space when he said, “what do you want?”

“I haven’t decided,” Malik said. He was tired-and-sore. His head was a bitter knot of things he could not keep himself from thinking. Kadar had broken through his resolve to forget and was a persistent rub against the soft inside of his head. This road had taken his brother to his death. This road had taken them to Altair and then to Solomon’s Temple. There was a meager, black pleasure in fucking Altair but it was a hollow victory against the man who never fought or protested. 

Altair turned around to look at him. “Decide you would rather I rub your shoulder than your cock,” he said. “Save fucking me for when you have more strength.” But he didn’t move until Malik nodded his head and sat up. Altair was taller than he was (always had been) but removed of the uniform of an assassin his body was slim with muscles. The skin of his hands was rough but his touch was practiced when he worked on Malik’s tight and sore shoulder. 

“How did you learn this?” Malik asked.

“My father,” Altair said. Then, as an afterthought. “He had no wife.” No, she had died in the effort of giving birth to Altair. Malik remembered his own mother worrying over Kadar’s birth when it had been so long since Malik had been born. He was a boy then, old enough to be sent off to join the assassins and his Mother was long out of youth. She worried-and-worried-and-worried over Kadar’s birth. 

“This is a better use for you,” Malik said as the tension eased and his exhausted body went lax. Altair made a noise behind him that was not pride or derision. “I hate you,” Malik said.

Altair’s hands on his shoulders did not pause. He said nothing at all to the words at first and then slid his arms around Malik’s chest, curved their bodies together and leaned across his right shoulder to say, “you are only capable of hatred, Malik.” Then he moved away, left Malik feeling numbed and sleepy. It shouldn’t have been an easy task to fall asleep but he did and relished the painless dark of it.

\--

Altair did not hide his cup of filthy water in the morning. Drank it in front of him with a grimace and a gagging that caught in his throat. His face was paler than usual and one of his hands pressed against his gut. “I have often heard you travel slower than most, Malik but I did not realize we would be less than halfway to Jerusalem after two days of travel.” 

“What is that?” Malik demanded. He took the cup from Altair and sniffed it, ran his finger around the inside and let it fall as he brought the residue up to look at. It was a concoction of boiled herbs, something foul and murky colored. “What is it?” he asked again.

Altair’s eyes were closed, his body bent forward and his two fists pressed against his stomach as if he could force them through his skin. His laugh was a brash, rude sound that cut off with a sudden gasp of breath. His shoulders dipped forward perilously close to the ground and then lifted again. Malik reached down to grab him by the back of the shirt and pulled him upward where he could look at his face. “It doesn’t concern _you_ ,” Altair said.

“ _What have you been drinking_?” Malik demanded. He yanked at Altair when he spoke, expected to be shaken off and ended up throwing Altair backward onto the ground instead. The man rolled on to his side, pulled his legs up and clenched his teeth with white-hisses-of-hot-pain. 

“You act like you know everything,” Altair snapped at him. “You talk and you talk and you’re an ignorant _fool_!” He crawled up onto his knees. Sweat was covering his body as he struggled up to his feet. One of his hands slid down under his clothes as Altair stared into his face and when he brought the hand up again it was shimmery-red-blood. “This one wasn’t yours.” And then he smiled (brittle, bitter, snapping apart) and laughed again. “You don’t even know what I’m saying. It was a baby, _idiot_.” Then he collapsed.

Malik took a step back away from his groaning body. Altair was on his knees with his face pressed against the ground and his hands still pushing against his gut. “Is this going to kill you?” Malik asked.

There was a groan-like-a-growl (laced through with pain). “No. Leave.”

So he went.

\--

As long as Malik could remember, Altair had been lauded as the best of his class. The teachers had built him up as an attainable goal, something that every boy could be if only they applied themselves. The undertone of that praise was the whispers of ‘I-watch-his-father-beating-him’ and the understanding that no boy was Altair’s friend (save Abbas, and what a terrible friend to have). At thirteen, that praise shifted from the achievable goal of a fellow’s superior skill to contemptuous prodding.

An omega has beaten you, was what they did not say but what was in their every word. Even Rauf—one of the fairest of their trainers—had whistled catcalls after Altair in the practice ring. The knowledge spread like a virus through boys that already had call to hate Altair. Malik could not remember who the first was to discover the notion of fucking Altair. (It had not been him. This he knew.) An older brother or an older novice had happened across their confused rambling and imparted the most sacred of information to them. The secret of omegas and sex. The wet and glorious act in all of its (semi-realistic) gory details.

Malik had shared a bed with barren women, the sort that were available for company without worry. He’d learned enough in those beds to fill his heads with ideas about what it would be like to bed an omega. Barren-women and omegas being nearly the same. And he knew well enough where babies came from. He had known since he was thirteen that Altair _could_ have a child. He had known it when Al Mualim whispered the idea into his ear. He had known it hours ago. 

And yet, as he walked away from the man’s low-bitten-groans of pain, he could _not_ comprehend the reality of it.

Two things had held true since he was thirteen-years-old: Altair was an omega, a breeder, an unwanted addition to a brotherhood of _men_ , and a distraction of swaying hips and sexual desirability. And Altair would never _not ever_ let a man touch him. 

(But, but, but, Malik had _fucked_ him and Altair had never-once-protested.)

\--

Then there was Kadar—small for a twelve year old—sneaking in through the window of Malik’s poor home with his novice uniform crooked on his small body. He had crept into Malik’s bed and laid at his side with his fingers curled but not touching him. Malik said, “you should not be here.” 

Kadar wiggled closer and rested his head against Malik’s hand where it lay just in front of his face. His face was cool from the night air and his breath (off pattern at first) evened out into a steady draw-and-release. Malik assumed he had fallen asleep and startled when Kadar said, “I wish it would happen. I wish it was over.”

“What?” Malik asked. 

“Becoming an omega,” Kadar said. “I wish I knew, I wish I didn’t have to wait.” 

Malik cupped his hand around his brother’s fluffy hair, rubbed his fingers through it and let out a small breath. “There have always been smaller men, Kadar. Your size does not make you an omega. Let it happen if it does and be glad if it does not.”

Kadar’s hand on his wrist was the grip of a child much younger than his brother’s years. “Of course.” But it was a sigh of sound, like a little defeat. Kadar stayed a few minutes more before he snuck out again before dawn and back into his bed before the instructors came to check. 

\--

Malik had not realized—(many things)—how little he had done for himself in the past weeks until the gnawing growl of his stomach drove him to search for something to eat. Altair (single-minded in his sudden subservience) had done nearly everything. He had cleaned and cooked and even shaved and dressed Malik. These were all things wives were meant to do, the daily tasks of living that were assigned to them by tradition. And these were all things that Malik had long ago mastered doing for himself. Things that he had been putting off in pitiful denial in all the time since he woke without his left arm. 

He went back toward the camp, found Altair missing but all of his things (save for his sword) where they had been only an hour or so before. Malik foraged through their bags to find something to eat, found a handful of nuts that were hard between his teeth but satisfying in his belly. He took a short sword and searched for the clumsy trail Altair left, followed it through a dense patch of foliage, out and around a rocky curve, down into the sudden hidden shore. 

“Go away,” Altair said when Malik stopped before his boots got wet. His skin—always paler than his own—was sickly pale. His two hands were gripped tight around the hilt of his sword as he sagged forward with his forehead pressed against it. The water that was pooled around him up to his ribs was a faint pink color. 

“Are you—”

Altair threw the sword at him, a mad rush of uncoordinated motion. The sword hit the thick, low grass on the bank and clanged noisily against the stone. His body tipped to the side and he landed in the water, enveloped in the oncoming wave of water so that it was only the ripples of where he’d gone under that were visible. His hand broke the surface of the water in the next instant and then his shoulder and his face. 

Malik considered leaving him to die there. It was a fitting death for the man—sagging weakly into the water he was so notoriously frightened of. (Malik thought of Kadar, with his nose in wrinkles, saying: why do you hate him?) He sighed as he stepped out into the water, the water finding the gaps in his boots almost instantly as he slogged his way out far enough to get his hand under Altair’s left arm. He was as weak as an infant, protested but could not free himself as Malik pulled him toward the shore. Malik dropped him when he was sure the man could lay in the water without drowning and stepped back onto the bank and sat in the damp dirt. “Did you love him?” Malik asked.

Altair laughed like _crying_ , his hand dripping water on his slack face when he covered his eyes. “What a wonderful world you must live in.” 

“Once, but no longer,” Malik said softly. They lapsed into silence. Altair as still as death in the slow drag of water and Malik watching his chest rise and fall without understanding why.


	8. Chapter 8

Altair woke with the taste of scum and dirt in his mouth, his head laying in mud and his body wrinkled from too long spent in water. Malik was sitting on the bank to his left, legs crossed in front of him as he looked out across the water at the drooping sun. Altair’s whole body felt thick and heavy, filled with sand and rocks so that he could barely force it to move with the full of his strength. But he struggled up to his feet, sloshed out deeper into the water to rinse the film of water-and-blood that had dried to his skin. 

Malik was on his feet when Altair turned back toward the shore. The look of concern on his face something so utterly foreign that it was nearly laughable. Altair said, “afraid I would die before you got the son you were promised?” He ducked low enough to grab his clothes but the motion was wooden and unsteady. His head felt light and airy and his feet barely had the coordination to carry him up the incline toward the dry land.

“Afraid you would live and I would still be stuck with you.” Malik said.

Altair fell (did not sit) and looked at the pallor of his arms, the weak dimple of his veins on his hands and the purpling color under his fingernails.

From somewhere behind him, Malik said, “is it done?”

Altair’s lungs felt starved, as if he could not gather enough to air to satisfy them. “Yes,” he said. Far more violently than the time before. Then again, he had not been left to stew his own little cups of poison the time before. It had been one of the women that did it for him, silent and solemn under the direction of Al Mualim. Altair managed to get his pants on, fought back up to his feet and made it several more feet before he fell over again.

“You need to sleep,” Malik said.

“I need food,” Altair countered. “I need water. What good are you for either?”

Malik’s noise was a rattle-like-a-snake. He was there at Altair’s side when he fought back to his feet again, the still-strong grip of his right hand catching his arm above the elbow and holding him halfway to his feet. Altair moved his legs and Malik pulled at him and they made it back to camp before the effort exhausted them both. “What good are you to anyone?” Malik asked him. He left again and Altair watched him go with a blur at the edge of his vision. He was half-unconscious when Malik returned with his sword and dropped it next to him. “If you had prepared for this trip adequately, we would not be starving now.”

Altair did not even have the breath to laugh at him. He rolled onto his side and dragged his own bag over, dug around inside of it until he found the little bag of fruit and nuts he’d lifted from the market on their way out. Chewing was an exercise in concentrated will. The singular focus of overcoming exhaustion and fighting back the black certainty of unconsciousness. 

“Will you be well enough to continue tomorrow?” Malik asked.

Unless he was dead. 

\--

But the morning came far faster than Altair wanted. His body was still sore with exhaustion, his stomach still angry at him for the abuse. The ache low in his hips made the notion of riding a horse seem quite a bit like torture but he could walk and there was pink in his skin again. He caught a fish (or two) and was halfway through cooking them before the man woke up. The smell was a noxious and unpleasant taste in the air but it had required little effort to catch. 

“Did Al Mualim know you were pregnant?” Malik asked.

Altair grunted as an answer. There were some secrets that he would not give up to his _husband_. He held the fish, skewered on a stick, out to Malik and watched his face wrinkle in distaste as he accepted it. When they’d finished (neither of them pleased with the meal) Altair packed his things and Malik made a clumsy attempt to gather his own. The effort obviously infuriated him but he did not ask for help. “What angers you? That I was _used_ before you had the opportunity or the idea that I might have wanted someone that wasn’t you?”

“Marriage is meant to be sacred.”

Altair laughed at that notion. “You were not _sacred_. You came to me well-practiced. Our marriage is a punishment; there is no reason to pretend it is otherwise.”

There was a notion of denial in Malik’s face that did not make it to his mouth. The quick-snap of protesting the idea of Malik deserving any punishment. Altair-was-his-as-a-reward for his loss. But the idea settled into Malik’s cramping shoulders and he said: “Are you well enough to continue?”

“Yes,” Altair said. It was only a little lie, small and harmless to anyone but himself. 

\--

Resolve, disgust or denial pushed Malik into a steady pace for the day. He rode with less pain and protest than he had in the past days. They made up the time they’d lost but wore their horses to the point of endurance in the process. Malik stopped them in a small village—just an accumulation of homes. Malik was an odd sight with one sleeve pinned up and his hair whipped out of shape by the wind. But he was a harmless man with his black robe covering the assassin whites and his single arm. 

Altair tended to the horses until Malik returned to him. “We are staying with the widow tonight. In the morning we will take fresh horses.” He grabbed Altair’s face and looked at his face, stared at his eyes and ran a thumb across his cheek. “You were not well enough to travel.” Hardly worth noting now. “Don’t lie to me,” he said when he let go of him. “Bring our things.”

The whole of Altair’s body felt liquid and _hurtful_. He had survived worse pains (far worse) and recovered from greater disasters. It was Malik’s obvious condescension that nagged him as he removed their things from the horses and carried it up the low slope to the widow’s shack. 

\--

There was a single bed to sleep in. Malik thanked their hostess with deep gratitude—for the meal and her kindness and the bed—and Altair was left the unpleasant realization that he would not be permitted to sleep anywhere else. The widow, a thin and brittle old woman, was quietly approving of them. Altair hated her (as he hated all the omegas who looked at him with secret-acknowledgement of _sameness_ ) for her kindness to Malik (who did not deserve it) and for the faded-old-teeth marks on her wrinkled-old-skin. 

Biting was a common enough show of dominance and ownership. It spread like a virus in the village when Altair was too young to understand the cause. His father had seemed pleased about it, and the wives that tended their daily tasks held their heads high and their marks bared with deliberate pride. It was his _inevitable_ future and it turned his stomach. (Then, again, Malik had been removed from his home and the expectations of a normal life. He had been thrown body-and-soul into the society of assassins where sex and marriage were least important.)

When the widow ceased her polite assault, and the sky was dark enough to sleep, Malik collapsed against the cushions with a grateful sigh laced with an echo of pain. Altair stayed against the wall, his legs carefully out of the way and his own aching body all but screaming in desire to stretch itself out and enjoy the blessed relief of sleep. Malik shifted and turned and moved until he found a place most comfortable for himself. “You have to sleep,” he said quietly.

Altair relented. Crept close enough to lay out on his belly, pulled his elbows in as tight as he could manage and turned his head so he could watch Malik’s body. He fell asleep listening for the settled sigh of his husband slipping into unconsciousness.

\--

The next day was the same. They were well fed by the widow and rode until Jerusalem was stretched out beneath them—sprawling and busy. The light was low in the sky as they gave the horses to the permanent station of Assassins who made a living out of returning stolen goods to their proper owners. Malik led them down to the gates and paused there, staring at the city with a shuddering stop. 

Altair watched the ebb and flow of the crowd around the gate, waited for a group of men (returning from a day spent beyond the city) swarmed around them and then pushed Malik into step with them. His hand was soft against Malik’s resisting back but it was enough to motivate the man through this momentary indecision. When they were inside, and the crowd dispersed around them, Altair dropped his hand away. 

Malik glared at him but said nothing. He resumed leading them and Altair followed.

\--&\--

By the time they reached the bureau, Altair was barely staying on his feet and Malik was faring only slightly better. They circled around to the ladder tucked safely out of obvious sight and climbed up to look at the closed gate. Altair stuck his arm through the grate, felt around for the lock and pulled it hard enough to make it crank and wheeze. His whole body was shaking as the full weight of the heavy wooden gate suddenly dropped and it was only the quick-flicker of reflex that kept him from having his shoulder dislocated. The wood caught his wrist in a painful wrench that nearly had him falling inward. Malik caught him by the arm to steady him and Altair’s gratitude came in the soft breathed-curses as he looked at the reddening-bruised meat of his wrist and right hand. 

“You could have been patient,” Malik said.

Altair’s answer was to jump down into the bureau below. He lost his balance on impact and fell on his ass. It was amazing enough that he hadn’t simply landed on his face to start with. Malik followed him, slid off the side of the gate, dangled from the grip of his right hand on the wood and then dropped a much shorter distance. He only barely stayed on his feet. 

Haydar was there, looking startled and ill-prepared to face whatever threat was assaulting his bureau. When he saw it was only them, he let out a shaky sigh of gratitude and then went to fetch the long hook that would secure the gate back in place. 

“You will need to eat,” Malik said to Altair. “You cannot stay there.”

Altair’s anger was the only color in his wan face. He got to his feet (perhaps solely because he was too stubborn to give into the obvious pain-and-exhaustion he felt) and followed Malik inside. Haydar was digging around under the long counter, searching for food to offer them and managed a small meal. 

“Rest tonight,” Haydar said to him, “I will show you what you need to learn in the morning.” He leaned to the side, around Malik who stood on the opposite side of the counter as him, and stared at Altair who had fallen asleep with his head pillowed on his crossed arms and his food half-eaten in front of his face. “If kindness does not come naturally, perhaps you should try pity,” Haydar said to Malik. “Your life has not been without its indignities and losses but they are light in comparison.”

“Any indignity he has suffered, he has earned with his actions,” Malik said.

Haydar (such an old, old man) shook his head with quiet disapproval but did not attempt to persuade him. “It is good that Al Mualim has sent you. I do not have the patience for youth anymore.” Then he bid him good night and retreated to his own rooms. 

\--

Malik dragged the cushions and carpets into a corner of the room before he could sleep. They had not moved in the span of time between Kadar waking up (blurry and yawning) on that final morning of his life and Malik returning to sleep on them again. He could not bring himself to sleep there. It was not easy to bring himself to sleep at all. 

His head was stuffed-full of bloody things: his brother’s face in those final seconds and the gash of blood across his throat as his lips (colorless so near death) mumbling, ‘go’ at him. The tips of his fingers, flushed red with trapped blood turning slowly but inexorably black. The surgeon’s white-shirts bathed in bright-red-blood as the deadened flesh of his left arm fell to the floor. 

And Altair, as still as death, laying in a bloody tide of his own making.

\--

Altair woke before morning, came on shuffling feet with pink pressure marks on his face, and found Malik still sitting there trying to put each unwanted thought back into its place. It was a lost battle, one that he had forfeited days ago when he had laid his head in his miserable home and cried for the brother he lost. There was no denying his loss now, no pretending that it simply did not exist, but the ever-lasting weight of grief. He watched Altair drink at the fountain, and rub the water into his hair before standing again. He stretched and yawned and pulled a rolled carpet flat on the floor with every intention of laying on it and sleeping again. 

“How long must I wait until I can have you again?” Malik asked. (Because he was tired and sleep would not come to him. Because it was his right. Because his head was full of bloody things and there was no relief for it.)

Altair turned on the balls of his feet to look at him. “I am impressed you waited as long as you have,” he said. He did not take his clothes off. “Not tonight.”

“Come rub my shoulders,” Malik said. Altair came, on quiet, even steps and knelt at his back as his hands worked at the painful knots and intolerable tight muscles of his shoulders and back. Malik rubbed his face, the thick growth of hair on his cheeks and the gritty dry tiredness of his eyes. “Stay,” he said when Altair moved to leave him. Malik sank into the pillows (grateful to be gray with exhaustion) and Altair’s body was a spot of warmth at his back pulled too out of shape to be his brother. But it was a body with breath and heat and Malik’s own was too close to sleep to care about the differences.

\--

Altair was still at his side in the morning, laying stretched out wearing the filthy clothes that smelled far too strongly of dried-old-blood and the scum from the water. His arms were crossed behind his head and his feet were pressed together with his knees bent upward toward the warm sun of late morning. He did not look at Malik when he struggled up to sitting. Malik was still-tired-and-still-sore but there was a day of work laying before him. Haydar was already awake and at work in the inner room of the bureau. 

“Go speak to Haydar about what supplies are needed, then go get them and new clothes for yourself.” Malik had barely gotten the words out before Altair was rolling away from him. “Control your impulse to cause trouble and take no weapons.” He got to his own feet and washed his face and hands in the fountains, scooped the water into his mouth with his hand and stripped off the heavy black robe. He waited until Altair was gone before he did the stretches and then went in to speak to Haydar.

The old man was bent across the desk, frowning severely at the ruined map laying before him. When he saw Malik’s shadow laying across it, his old smile quirked at the edge. “You are inheriting an old man’s failure. Either our mentor holds you in high regard or he wishes to punish you severely.”

“Al Mualim does what is best for our brotherhood,” Malik said. He put his fingers against the edge of the map and turned it around to face him. It was simply unusable, ruined by the many tremors in Haydar’s knotted hands. “Where is my brother’s body, Rafiq?”

Haydar sat on a stool behind the counter, rested his forearms against the sharp edge of it and let a long breath out through his nose. “I sent a small group of novices to retrieve and bury him. It was all that could be done. His body rests by Solomon’s Temple but I cannot tell you where. They will return here when they have finished in Acre and you can make them take you there.”

Malik nodded. “You will give me their names.”

“I will give you many names,” Haydar said simply. “And many tasks. Jerusalem is consumed by this war. Our brothers that make their home in this city live in constant fear of discovery and death. The ones that come with missions want nothing more than to be gone again.”

“I am aware,” Malik said. He went around the counter to the hinged doors and stepped through them. Becoming a Rafiq, serving assassins who were still impatient with youth, was an eventuality that he could have always seen for himself but not so soon or under such circumstances. “If we are ever to be finished, we must begin,” Malik said. “I have never been beyond the outer rooms of the bureau, perhaps you should show me the interior.”

“It is strange that you were sent,” Haydar said as he got to his feet. His groaning knees and crooked back snapping and cracking under the muffling weight of his long black cloak. “I have corresponded with Al Mualim for many months on this matter. We discussed many options, talked of many men who would be suitable replacements for me. You are a child, still.” Haydar straightened as far as he was able. “You are blind with anger and loss. Think on these things in the coming days.”

“I was sent because I have been loyal to the creed and I will do what is necessary to uphold it and protect my brothers, _regardless_ of my personal feelings.” He stepped to the side for Haydar to move past him.

“Ah, yes,” Haydar said agreeably. “Did he lose the child?”

“Who?”

“Altair,” Haydar said. He pushed open the thick, flat door that led into the interior of the bureau. Pausing long enough for Malik to see a hidden latch that locked it in place and then pushing the full of his weight to it before it would move.

“It was not lost, it was disposed of,” Malik said. He reached over Haydar’s head to push on the door in order to gain entry before the end of the day. The old man mumbled a bit of gratitude he obviously did not feel. 

“That is best,” Haydar said. Then he turned his conversation to more useful topics. He showed Malik the inner rooms—the store room with spare weapons, medicinal supplies, clothing and travel gear. There was enough money to provide for them and the many assassins that would pass through. Another room was made up for sleeping, the assortment of things left over from the Rafiqs before gathering dust on shelves. 

“How did you know?” Malik asked when the old man paused in telling him inane things about the man who ran this bureau before him. 

“Well I met him,” Haydar said with a laugh. He knocked his knuckles against Malik’s gut and then let out another of those long suffering sighs. The bedroom was dim without a window, the light from the other room slanting in through the wide-open doorway. He looked very sad in that moment, leaned his shoulder back against the wall as if it would be a respite from the weight of his own body.

“Do you know who its father was?” Malik asked.

“No,” Haydar said. “I know only that whoever that man is, should he like to continue breathing, he should never show his face to Altair again. Do not mistake me, Malik. Altair is full of pride. He is not driven by faith in our creed. He has killed men who did not deserve to die.” There a sad gnarled laugh. “He would kill me if I did not outrank him. It shows in his face, how useless he finds me to be.”

“You speak in his defense often considering.”

“I am not a young man. I do not have the luxury of ignorance and spite to blind me. Altair is no innocent. I do not speak in defense of him. I speak to _you_ for _your_ benefit. The sins of your youth grow heavy when you age. It is for this reason that I forgive Altair’s failings though they are many. Mine are fewer but worse.” Whatever the sins of this man, they must have grown so heavy they broke his bones. Haydar’s eyes were bright beneath his bushy brows but all other parts of him were gray with approaching death, pocked with spots and dimples where his skin was degrading. 

“If the worst of my sins is treating Altair as the omega he is, my burden will stay light and easy to bear.” 

Haydar relented with a shrug of his shoulders. “You are a man of absolutes, Malik. You will do well here where so many men lose faith. That must be why Al Mualim has sent you; he must know that you will never stray from the path he put you on.”

“You speak in riddles,” Malik said.

“I speak plainly,” Haydar corrected. “You hear only what you understand. Come, I will show you to your tasks and we will prepare you to visit your allies in the city. There are few in these troubling times.”

\--

It was after mid-day, with the room growing steadily hotter and the list of things still left to be done stretching endlessly before him. Haydar had left him to make sense of the many ruined maps as he sought refuge in a short nap (he said). Malik was coated in sweat, unrolling the maps across the old wooden top to check each of them. The majority were good for nothing—maybe to start a fire—but a few of the older ones were still legible enough. 

The master copies were worn from use, creased and torn. 

The sound of bells pulled him out of the dreary nothingness of mundane tasks. He went around the long counter to listen to the quacking of the city beyond these walls. Women and men in the streets that started questioning the cause of the alarm. Altair slid across the roof with a rush of footsteps and fell through the open grate. His many burdens fell to the ground as he ducked forward to catch the long hook that closed the grate. “Move,” he said when Malik did not duck out of the way with enough speed. Then he was pushing the massive wooden grate upward and sliding the lock closed. He took Malik by the hand and dragged him inward away from the sound of guards shouting and the rapid rush of feet.

“What was that?” Malik demanded.

Altair was smirking as he tipped his head up to look at the grate and the commotion that was passing across their roof. He put his back against the corner and turned back to Malik with the smile fading off his face. “The man who tried to rob me,” Altair said.

“The bells?” Malik asked.

“The guard that tried to stop the man that tried to rob me,” Altair said. “They will catch him. The thief is bleeding.” When the stampede faded away, Altair went out to the other room to gather the things he had been sent to fetch. 

“I said avoid trouble,” Malik said.

“I did not invite the man to try to rob me, Malik. I did not ask him to kill the guard who tried to stop him. I did nothing but run and he tried to follow me. Has the Rafiq abandoned his post already? Is there so little to manage that it can be explained in a single morning?” Altair was craning his neck, that smugness of victory making him less-and-less tolerable even before he turned to look at Malik. 

“The bureau is dirty,” Malik said. 

“They often are.”

“Clean it,” Malik said. Then he went back behind the counter to finish his task. “Do it quietly.”


	9. Chapter 9

When Altair was five, Altair’s father had said to him, ‘ _you will be nothing. You are too stubborn to train, too arrogant to learn and too foolish to take pride in labor._ Then he sent him out to sweep dirt from the ground until Altair learned his lesson (whatever it was his father had wanted him to learn. Humility, perhaps, a perpetual topic at his household. Often talked about and rarely understood). Altair had swept the dirt from the ground until he’d made a sunken hole in front of their door, until his fingers were stiff and his shoulders were aching. He’d swept until there were blisters on his hands and he was furious with hunger and the laughter of other boys. 

It occurred to him, as he scrubbed the filthy floor of the bureau (uselessly, pointlessly) that Malik would have very much approved of his father’s methods. He would have agreed with every bitter word that fell from the man’s mouth. They would have sat together and watched him with their sly-sideways talk of how Altair’s sole hope for happiness lay in a quick death. Yes, they would have been delighted with one another. 

All save for how Malik did not watch him with growing fury in his face but seemed to look anywhere in the whole of the world except at him. Obedience angered Malik (who demanded it so frequently and so constantly) in a way directly opposed to how it had pleased Altair’s father. 

\--

“I have long thought you would waste your life in pursuit of the impossible,” Haydar said from the doorway. He was bent and shaking his head with Malik moving around somewhere behind him. “I did not expect it to end so literally. You can scrub as long as you like, those stones will never be clean.”

Altair sat back on his knees (damp with murky water) and wiped his forehead with his wrist. He looked over his shoulder at the stones he had cleaned, the sparkle of them freed from dirt and the lines of mud that lay between them. Haydar followed his gaze and let out a small sigh. “This is insanity is not mine. It belongs to the man who has inherited your post.”

Haydar laughed at that notion. “This insanity is solely your own, Altair. You are unbreakable as Malik is immovable. Your sins must be greater than imagined if this is the price of them. Do not speak to deny it. I have no patience for youth.”

So he returned to his work as Haydar limped back inside to speak with Malik again. They left in the late afternoon, just before evening, to take a turn of the city and visit what few allies the brotherhood had left in this city. Malik paused only long enough to remind him to continue with his task. 

\--

Night came (at last) and Malik grudgingly accepted that the carpets and cushions they would make a bed on (one last night before Haydar rode back for Masyaf) had to be moved to the interior room. The stones in the outer room were still wet and the mud between them would have soaked the in a matter of moments. 

Altair intended to sleep on the creaking wooden planks over their heads, safely away from Malik’s groping arm and whimpering nightmares that had haunted him the past two nights. He had already taken a smaller carpet to protect him from splinters and put all of his things out of the way. His body was sore from scrubbing, his hands smelled of soap and his stomach was full of air from the poor meal Haydar insisted on serving. Malik had frowned over it with gracious acceptance. He was more than ready to sleep but his _husband_ was frowning over pillows and cushions and the dusty smell of the room.

“What?” Malik demanded when Altair stood at the edge of his bed and waited for any last commands. 

“Once I go to my bed I’d like to stay in it until morning,” Altair said. 

“Then go,” Malik said angrily.

Altair did not argue with him. He climbed the bookcase, pulled himself up onto the wooden platform and crept over to his small bed. Malik was scoffing on the floor, mumbling about his stupidity but said nothing outright. With the distance between them, the perception of safety at a greater height, it was easier to sleep. 

\--

Altair woke first in the morning, enjoyed the peace of his own private bed. Malik was still sleeping on the floor beneath him, face loosened from his perpetual scowl (at least). It made him look like Kadar and the resemblance made Altair sigh softly. He had meant it when he said there was no exchange great enough to equal Kadar’s life. The boy had more sense and compassion than any other man Altair had met. Death might have been a kinder fate for him, in the end, than the nagging fear of what seemed inevitable to him. Kadar was not meant to be an assassin (as evidenced by the manner of his death and his poor performance before it); his body might never have declared himself an omega. The half-life that faced him as filled with the misconception of men with little brains and old bias. Life would have beaten the compassion out of Kadar. It would have stolen the still-bright light in his eyes.

Slowly-oh-but-surely, Kadar would have become his brother: aged with hate.

Altair sat with his feet hanging over the edge. Watched the rising light of the day as it slowly filled the high ceiling of the interior room. Then closed his eyes and listened to the city as it woke up beyond the walls, the hearty calls of greeting and the bustle of merchants moving to sell their wares in the center of the city. The passing marching of the guards that made a mockery of protecting Jerusalem’s citizens. He opened his eyes when a small shuffle of motion alerted him to Malik sitting up beneath him.

His face, no longer lax with sleep, was a stumped look of bitter dislike. A dream had followed him into the waking world and Malik (unmovable, Haydar said) could not shake it free. In the face of that failure, he settled his hateful gaze on Altair. Retribution, it seemed, would be dealt out on the only available source. “Are you recovered?”

Altair lifted himself up and dropped down to the floor. There was no sound of Haydar coming to life beyond the heavy door that separated them. Altair pulled at the strings that held his pants in place and let them fall at the edge of the carpets. He moved to step across Malik’s legs but was dragged downward by a hand on his wrist and he landed on his knees as Malik got up behind him. 

It was harder to forget he was being fucked when his body was being pushed and pulled by an outside force. There was no burn of muscles or effort of motion on his part to numb and distance the idea that he was being _used_. On his knees and elbows with Malik’s hand pressing against the center of his back it was a pointed assault to prove that he was being _dominated_ and every bit of him wanted nothing more than to shake Malik off and prove he was the weaker. 

But it was brief, at least. And Malik said nothing when he pulled away and straightened his own clothes. Altair washed in the cold water of the fountain and dressed in his new clothes (no longer that uniform of an assassin) and climbed back to the safety of his bed to wait for further commands. 

\--

Haydar rose, spoke to Malik again about the many duties he had inherited and then announced he was ready to go. “I would appreciate if you could spare your wife long enough to carry my things out of the city.”

Malik sneered at the very thought. “Go and return directly,” he said to Altair. 

So he went, burdened with the heavy packs Haydar meant to take with him. The old man armed with only a short blade and Altair armed with only the common appearance of any other omega. (Disgusted by the persistent crawl of things moving beneath his skin, the unsettled feeling that Malik had fucked into his body that morning.) They walked the crowded streets in silence for several minutes, Haydar limping along so slowly it had become difficult to slow his own stride to match it. 

Then the old man said, “I ride to my death.”

Altair had no opinion of that information. He had not figured out how Haydar had survived so long with his body slowly knotting itself into uselessness. The tremors in his arms were bad enough now that he would be lucky to keep a decent hold on the reins of the horse he meant to ride. It might have been kinder to slit his throat and leave his body to be discovered by the guards.

“Yes, I did not think it would trouble you.” Haydar stopped and sat on a barrel set against a wall. The prominent bulge of his knee rose through the loose pants and he rubbed the flat of his shaking palm against it with a hiss of breath and a low moan. “It is a curious turn what upsets you and what does not. Most men do not take to death with the same ease as you have. Nightmares haunted me for years.”

Altair did not care. He stood and waited for the old man to get back to his feet. He did not offer assistance to ease Haydar’s struggles. When they started walking again, he stayed at the man’s side as the shuffled onward.

“Most men are not as troubled by the act of sex as you are,” Haydar said. It was an idle observation made by one of the many men who thought of themselves as predators of the weaker sex (and thought it with pride). The words were so light they were barely a sound and Altair easily pretended not to have heard them. “Malik is a good man.”

“He is a man,” Altair countered. 

Haydar laughed at the words. “Ah, yes. I know your opinion of men well. Why should you think highly of the sex that has abused you so greatly in so short a time? It was always your fate to become a wife; no harm would have come to you if you had not fought it. That is what they must say to you. You should know, far better than any man or woman—be they omega or not—that fate does not exist. We are each the summation of mistakes, failures and wounds. A man is not good or bad based solely on his deeds. We are all capable of terrible, unforgiveable things. Good lies in what we are capable of changing in ourselves and in the world around us.” 

The gates were in sight (at last) and Altair might have picked the man up and carried him if only to get him to cease speaking. Altair was no longer counted in the ranks of assassins and owed no allegiance to the members of its ranks (save for his husband). The idea was brief and wonderful.

Haydar’s grip on his shirt pulled him out of the pleasant reverie of throwing the man into an oncoming guard and leaving him to deal with the consequences. “Listen to reason,” he said, “if you cannot bother to listen now then hear and remember what I say. Cruelty is made of ignorance, darkness in the soul is made of secrets. What has happened to you reflects on the men that have committed the crimes and not on you.”

Altair could not possibly (not _possibly_ ) have kept his hands from dragging the bent old man forward or from throwing him back against the building. The force of the impact knocked a scatter of dust and crumbling bits of the wall over their heads. There was crawling-crawling-crawling things under his skin. He could have snapped Haydar’s neck without a moment’s pause but the old man looked at him with a frank fearlessness.

“Make an ally out of your husband, Altair. Malik is a man many respect, a man that many wish they could match. A man that can bring change to the minds of men searching for a direction. With such an ally you can accomplish anything. With such an enemy you can accomplish nothing.”

“I need no ally,” Altair snapped at him. “You will not speak what you should not know to any man.” But that was not the most trouble of things to think. “How do you know?”

“I know nothing,” Haydar said.

Altair grabbed him and shoved him against the wall again, felt the thickness of his old bones cracking under the pressure and saw the pain on his face. There were red-and-white spots over the old scars and Haydar (grayed with age) was gasping open-mouthed in need of air. “Tell me how you know and I will spare your life.”

“I am dead already,” Haydar said with a wheeze. “Take comfort in that because my confession will truly be a test of your word.” He straightened as best he could with his back pinned to the building and Altair’s knuckles bruising the spaces between his ribs. His mouth was wet and his voice was burdened with guilt (old and withered). “I am numbered among those men, like the ones that—,” but Altair slapped him before he could say and there was blood his face when Haydar looked up at him. “Listen to reason, they are—”

Altair shoved him toward the gate. “Go or I will kill you.” When Haydar stumbled, Altair shoved him and the old man shuffled forward a half-step faster before nearly falling over. He went limping with all the speed he could manage, not looking back. 

Altair was shake-shake-shaking where he stood with both his hands in fists like hammers.

\--&\--

There were no visitors on the first day, nothing to distract Malik from his work. Or from his many attempts to figure out how best to accomplish his work. The thick paper he was meant to copy the maps onto slid and moved on the counter when he tried to trace the lines. The instinctual motion of his left arm made a surge of bitter fury rise into his throat. Three-times he had been moved to a rage that left his face red and his eyes wet. His prison, these many walls of this bureau seemed to sag and moan all around him as the sound of life continued on-and-on over his head. 

He heard the bells before midday, hours after Altair had gone and not returned. 

Malik turned toward the sound of them, thought of how pleasing it would be to know that they signaled the death of his unwanted burden. Wherever his _wife_ had gone to, he had gone with disobedience. Malik closed the grate after several failed attempts. The bruises left by the effort kept him company through the sour afternoon long after the bells had ceased tolling and the rhythm of the city had returned to normal.

\--

Altair returned when the sky was going dark. He opened the grate himself, managed not to break his arm, fall to his death or lose a thumb in the effort. He did fall into the bureau as a tumble of uncoordinated limbs. He landed hard on his shoulder and laid there a moment with his body curled up in a defensive posture. Malik closed the grate again and went to stand at Altair’s side, kicked him (softly enough) with one foot so the man rolled onto his back. He was filthy with bruises and blood. 

“You’re supposed to open the bureau after the bells stop, Malik.”

“And you were supposed to go and _return_ , wife.” He crouched and grabbed Altair by the face, tipped it one way and then the other to see the full extent of the damage. One of his eyes was swelling and blackened. There was a cut across his cheekbone and his lips were split in several places. There was blood on his arm from a cut across his bicep and blood on his hands from several small cuts on his fingers and palms. “I should beat you for disobedience.”

“You assume I’d allow it,” Altair said. He got up to his feet. There was a scrape across his neck and collarbone faded into a dull pink-brown by the length of the day. “I would have returned but the grate was closed. I was forced to find a place to hide and wait for you to open it.”

“What attacked you while you waited?” Malik asked. 

“The guards were attacking a woman.” Altair had never shown even the slightest inclination toward getting involved with anyone caught by the guards before. “I assisted her and since I was not permitted to carry a weapon, I had to improvise.” He looked at the slash on his arm with a critical eye and seemed to decide it was not worthy of any further medical attention.

“This is the very same disregard for rules that ended with my brother’s death,” Malik snapped at him. The same carelessness on Altair’s face, the same speculative tilt of his eyebrow and the expressionless set of his mouth. He didn’t _care_ about the consequences of his actions; dismissed them with the whole of his body as he turned away from Malik. 

“Say what you must. I will not allow you to beat me,” Altair said. He went in through the doorway and Malik grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back. Their strength was an uneven match up. Altair was whole and healthy (enough to fight an unknown number of guards) and Malik had yet to regain back what strength he’d had before. Altair shook him off but turned around to look at him. 

“It does not even trouble you!” Malik shouted at him. “There is no punishment conceived by man that would prove to you that you were wrong, that you have done wrong and because of you all have suffered! Your actions ruined our lives. It has not caused you a second of pause in all this time! You killed my brother!”

Altair scoffed, did not laugh, at the words. “Your brother was a poor assassin, poorly trained and poorly practiced that should not have been on any mission much less one with his blood brother. You,” he shouted back with a finger stabbing into Malik’s chest, “killed your brother. You carried him straight to his death.”

Malik hit him with every bit of strength he had left in his body. Hit him hard in his exposed ribs and heard the grunt of pain when he found an already tender spot. Altair doubled over with his elbow knocking against the counter hard enough to rattle everything left sitting on top of it. Malik grabbed him by the hair and bashed his knee into the man’s face. There was blood streaming out of his nose when Altair straightened up. His teeth were bare but there was no joy in his face when he caught Malik’s arm and his left shoulder and pinned him back against the shelf. “You foul bitch!” Malik screamed at him, “you should have died. I should have had you hanged.”

Altair held him in place with blood pouring out of his nose and the strangest tilt of his head. He didn’t react (didn’t flinch, didn’t move at all) at the stream of hateful things Malik shouted at him. When he moved it was a step backward, both of his hands working his own pants off his legs. Malik thought he would laugh at him, spit on him, kick him in his useless cock and leave him there but he grabbed him by the neck and shoved him face-down against the counter. Altair made a protesting sound, and slid out from under him, dragged him down to the ground with him. Malik was between his legs with Altair’s hands in his clothes and impatient thrusts of his hips until they matched up and he fucked into Altair’s body. The flinch on Altair’s face an echo of the resisting clench of his body. 

\--

After, Malik retreated to his room and hid there. He could hear Altair moving around out in the other rooms. He could smell the food that had been prepared and heard the scrape of the dish left outside of the door for him. 

But he stayed hidden, small and cornered.

\--

Morning came and one dish was joined by another. Malik picked the freshest and carried it out to the counter. Altair was hiding on the planks over his head, one of his legs swinging freely and the other crossed in front of him as he ate his own food. With his back against the corner, Altair had a clear view of him. His face was half-purpled with one of his eyes swollen mostly shut. 

“We must speak frankly to one another,” Altair said from his safe distance. “You may fuck me whenever you like, I will not fight or deny you as long as we are alone. I will not get on my belly for you. I will clean your bureau and cook your meals and shave your face if you are not able to do so yourself. I will not be kept like a prisoner in this place; I am free to go when I want and return when I choose.”

“You have no advantage,” Malik said. “You are mine to do with what I want.”

“You have no advantage,” Altair said. He set his own dish down and leaned forward away from the wall. “You have given away the only one you had, Malik. If I have no hope of you allowing me to return to Masyaf as an assassin, I have no reason to humor you any longer.”

The truth at last, Altair’s obedience bought at the price of the hope he could return to the brotherhood he did not belong in. It was gone now, that obedience and the subservient duck of his shoulders and head. This was Altair-the-youngest-Master-Assassin looking down at him the same as he had in Solomon’s Temple. It was an odd feeling of relief to see him for his true self again. (What a wonder there was in that notion, the idea of being relieved to see Altair at all.)

“Prove you mean to honor your words,” Malik said.

“Have I not proved them already?”

“You haven’t,” Malik assured him.

“Then how?”

Malik looked at his sore, swollen face and the scrapes and cuts on his arms and collarbone. There was a tail-end of a bruise going around his ribs and from the stiff way he sat, there must have been a dozen more wounds he had not felt worthy of note. “Come, let me fuck you.”

Altair sighed as if he were _bored_ as he climbed down from his hiding place. He walked over (already shirtless) and stepped through the swinging doors at the end of the counter. “Agree to my terms first,” he said.

“You will sleep in my bed,” Malik said to him. “You are my wife and it is where you belong.”

Oh-and-how Altair’s face went pale and his teeth clenched so tight it was a flicker in his jaw. But he nodded his head. “I do not sleep without my sword, Malik. I will not.”

“You will serve the assassins that come to the bureau in whatever manner they require. You will feed them, dress their wounds, fetch them water—wash their clothes if that is what they need.” Because there was no greater insult to Altair’s pride than the idea of serving men of lower rank than him. It brought a flush of anger to his face, and Malik smiled at the fetching pinkness of it. 

“Fine,” Altair said. “But I will not allow them to touch me or speak crudely.”

“You will let them speak however they wish,” Malik said. “They should know better than to touch another man’s wife. Do you agree?”

“Fine.”

Malik looked at the many wounds on Altair’s body, the new ones and the fading ones and the scars that were silvery lines across his pale skin. He pressed his fingers against a sore spot and Altair did not even flinch at the motion. He ran his thumb over the light pink of his nipple and then down the tight muscles of his belly to the tie that held his pants closed. “I agree to your terms,” he said. “Suck my cock while I eat.”

Altair sighed again (oh-so-bored) and got on his knees in front of him.


	10. Chapter 10

His freedom was an illusion. Altair was aware of the bitter truth but he took comfort in the lie. Malik had given in far easier than he expected. The shame that had driven him to hide in the room overnight had softened his seething hatred enough to make it malleable. Shame was a strange thing on Malik’s face and Altair could not trace it back to a logical source. (He did not try very hard either. It was easier to accept and forget it.) 

What mattered was the stretch of opportunities that flowed around him as the city in motion. What mattered—more than the illusion of freedom he’d bought—was the burn of his muscles and the scratch on his palms as he pulled himself up-and-up to the top of the tower that stood to the southwest of the bureau. His bruised ribs were aching by the time he pulled himself onto the viewpoint. The edges of it crusted with bird shit that broke under his bare hands and stuck to the sweat between his fingers. He made a mental note to remember gloves the next time he escaped the hellish confines of the bureau. 

For now he sat with his legs hanging from either side of the wooden triangle and looked out over the city. He listened to them, traced the sounds of their voices until he found each person. He watched the guards walking their routes until the pattern of their footsteps had burnt themselves into his memory. 

\--

The first visitor to the bureau was a sheepish man with a shrinking nature that had been excusing himself from Malik’s offer of staying overnight when Altair returned. The man had looked at him and smiled as politely as he was able to smile. 

“I do not think you are supposed to be here,” the assassin said. As a means of removing unwanted visitors his shaky grip on the short blade tucked into his belt was the least effective. This man was not numbered among the men who were sent out to kill the parasites that plagued humanity. His station (just judging by his nervousness) was more likely a messenger. “You should go.”

“That is my wife,” Malik said from behind his counter.

This intrigued the man. He looked Altair up-and-down (was at least an inch shorter than him and much lighter in every respect) before focusing on his neck with a slight frown. “Well I would never have guessed. I might not even have known he was an omega.” 

Altair went around him, walked toward the interior where his daily task of preparing a meal awaited him. And from behind him the soft release of breath from the man’s mouth when he said, “ah yes. But to know he was a man’s wife is impossible. I would not allow my wife out without some mark of ownership on her.”

Altair did not stay to hear Malik’s reply to that ignorant statement. He hid in the rooms until the sound of the grate closing drew him back out. There was a great ringing of bells tolling and Malik was panting with effort from his stubborn insistence on closing the stupid grate by himself. The bruises along the side of his ribs from where he pressed the end of the hook growing steadily deeper and worse with every repeated trial. 

“You will not bite me,” Altair said as he dropped the dish on the counter in front of Malik. 

“As fucking you is far more of a chore than a passion, I do not believe it will be a problem to resist the temptation.” Malik ducked down low enough to sniff at the food and finding it to be acceptable began to eat. With no distractions and the light growing faint and gray as evening set around them, the shame of the night before crowded Malik and made him look small. “Is it painful?”

“What?” Altair asked. His face was the only pain that plagued him at the moment. The swollen mass of it making every motion of his eye something like an aching pulse. 

“Sex.”

“No,” Altair said. “It is also not pleasurable. It just is.”

“Except during your fever?”

“No. Even then it just is.”

“They why would you want it?” Malik asked. He was pressed closed to the counter, watching him with a neutral expression (not even curiosity) as he asked ignorant questions. If these were the worries that had driven him into his room the night before it was a wonder he had managed to look so very _entitled_ when he command Altair onto his knees that morning. 

“If our bodies did not force omegas to desire it there would never be babies and our race would die. Does it matter, these things? I told you that you could do what you wanted.”

“You are the only person to share my bed that views it with great distaste.”

Altair scoffed at that notion. “You are free to find others if I do not satisfy you.”

“You are my wife. I will not seek companionship elsewhere.” Then Malik finished eating without speaking to him. 

\--

Agreeing to share a bed with Malik had been an unfortunate sacrifice. Sex was not his primary complaint (although being so close to Malik seemed to remind him that he had the ability to ask for it whenever he wanted). It was the lack of safety that set into his bones and made it hard to sleep that bothered him. Malik slept with greater ease when Altair was at his side giving off heat and breathing slow-and-even in accompaniment. But Altair slept fitfully, as far away as he could manage with the bulk of his sword between their bodies.

\--

Out in the city, the men with loud voices stirred the crowds into frenzies that echoed in the everyday conversations shared on city benches and in tight clusters of bodies. Men with no better ideas repeated every word again-and-again and Altair moved in circles through their groups watching the virus of ignorance and stupidity pass along. 

He was crossing the roofs, heading back toward the bureau and the four-or-five idiot novices that were to arrive in the afternoon (out on their first attempt at travelling without a full assassin to assist them). There was a shout from the street below, the distinctly identifiable sound of fear-and-pain. Then the sharp sound of a slap and the bellow of a man shouting, “you dare steal in my presence!” Altair moved close enough to the edge of the building he was standing on to see the woman struggling in the center of the cluster of guards. Two were looking out at the pathetic crowd. Their eyes like black dots, daring anyone to speak against them and the absoluteness of their authority. At their backs two guards were pulling at the woman while she struggled and shrieked. Her thin arms bared by their ripping hands and the sound of their amusement at her terror echoing up into the air.

But her cries went without answer. Altair crouched at the edge of the building and watched the men-and-women pass without looking. Watched an old man sitting on a bench looking with a blanched-white-look of concern but even he did not move to intervene. The woman’s dress tore and her scream was a pitiful wail of defeat as her body folded forward in an attempt to spare herself the humiliation but the guards would not relent until they had gotten what they wanted. Their leathery-voices against her face as they ducked down and licked promises into her cheeks. 

All women could be fucked. Altair remembered learning that long before he learned not all women were omegas. Biological imperative toward reproduction drove men toward omegas with a single-minded purpose but women-could-be-fucked, even the ones that couldn’t reproduce. 

Malik had forbidden him from taking weapons with him when he left the bureau (that rule would simply need to be changed) so Altair had nothing but the plain clothes he wore. He looked at the passing men-and-women, found nothing (save for a sack of something and a pot) and stepped off the side of the building. It was a simple task to move through the sparse crowd, easy enough to walk up to the guard.

“What are you looking at?” the man demanded of him. Altair pulled his sword from its scabbard, kicked him hard in the knee and knocked the hilt of the sword into his temple when he fell forward. The quietly-ignorant crowd at his back was screaming outrage at his actions but the guard at his side was drawing his sword. “You will regret that!”

“You will regret this,” Altair assured him. The ensuing fight lasted a mad spattering of minutes, the clang of metal on metal and the vibrating impact shaking in his shoulder still when he dropped the sword he’d stolen in the circle of fallen bodies. He had not killed any of them (purposefully) but they would be removed from the streets in any case. Altair grabbed the woman by the arm and pulled her out into the crowd that hissed in denial of hiding them. It was out-and-around, cutting through a side street and moving out into another crowd. The woman clung to his clothes as she pushed herself against his body and he straightened his back and slowed his stride. 

“My brothers will know what you have done for me,” she said against his chest. “I owe you my life.”

“Go home,” Altair said when he thought she would be safe in the forgiving anonymity of the crowd. “Stay there a while.” Then he jumped up on a set of barrels and pulled himself back up to the roofs. It was a great deal farther from the bureau than he thought. The sight of his crime blocking his most direct path and the effort of avoiding him making him most assuredly late to return. He huffed at Malik’s sour-expression (burnt into his memory) and the sure-to-be-snide reproach about his inability to do what he was told. Then he started on his way.

\--

True-to-form, Malik was furious with him when he finally returned to the bureau. There had been no bells to alert the man of what he had been doing. But there was blood on Altair’s shirt and a slash across his sleeve where a sword had caught the cloth but not the flesh under it. The four novices that had come from Masyaf (on this, the most important journey of their lives) were sitting together at the table looking ragged and exhausted.

“At last,” one said. “We are starving.”

Altair said nothing to them. Malik said, “prepare them a meal.” Every-syllable-scathing-and-furious. “A _hot_ meal.”

Altair made them a meal (but it was not a good one) and served it to them as they laughed among themselves about how awesome their power was, at how stealthy their feet and how determined their victory. There was one, with pitch-black-eyes and a burnt-frown on his face that looked at Altair as if he were a bit of filth not even fit to be seen. That one, not the others, said, “I will need my robes washed before we continue.”

The others shared a nervous flinch of laughter. These boys that had been a year behind Kadar, these boys that had grown up with the knowledge that they could never match Altair’s success. These stupid boys that looked at him with pink in their cheeks and a growing confidence in their own luck at being born _men_. One by one they added their agreement and comment on how filthy their clothes were.

“This food is poorly made,” the black-eyed one said. “Your husband must have no taste buds if this is what you feed him.”

When Altair turned away from them, Malik was smiling at the map he had been pretending to work on. The sincere satisfaction at these meager humiliations was a greater insult than anything he had managed to scrape out of his chest in all the time they had been _married_. 

\--

Later, while the three sycophants sat half-dressed and fat with food in the other room arguing over a map, the black-eyed-one stood by the wall of the outer room and watched Altair scrubbing his clothes. The gush of water from the fountain drowned out most of the sound of the idiots arguing foolishly over a map they didn’t seem to understand. But it could not drown out the audible sound of this foul little boy staring at him. It could not drown out the sound of boots shuffling closer to him or the creak of bone-and-sinew as the novice leaned across his back (without touching him) and whispered (thick-and-dark-and-smoky) into his ear: “you look best on your knees.”

It could not drown out the wild beating of his heart and the persistent _thought_ of how very close the bulk of his weapons were. He could have this boy gutted and crying for his mother in less than a minute. But the water (gushing-and-gushing) could not drown out the coldness that filled his chest or the obscene way the novice lapped at his own lips and watched him so-very-intently.

\--&\--

The news of Haydar’s death (a surprise to nobody) had come to Malik in the matter of a few days. It was delivered by a fellow assassin, a traveler on the start of a long journey who recounted the tale of how he’d found Haydar.

“I found him lying by the side of the road. I do not know who killed him, only that he was not freshly dead. There was a wound in his chest and his hands were grasping at it. The scavengers had already started picking at him—his eyes and most of his face were gone. I might not have known it was him if I did not recognize his hands. I do not return to Masyaf for many months, Rafiq or I would tell the Grandmaster what I saw myself.”

“I’ll send the news,” Malik assured him. He offered use of the bureau for the night but the assassin would not stay. He left with great haste (and a full stomach). Malik wrote out the account of what had happened to send back to Al Mualim. A response came only a few days later, the sad confirmation of the news and a brief explanation to indicate the old man had simply lost his way and died of old age and poor health. Al Mualim wrote to tell him that new maps were being found and should be copied to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

\--

Malik’s days were long and spent in a series of boring tasks. The only highlight those moments when Altair was dusting the bureau with the same look of trapped-misery. When he was alone, after Altair had run away to enjoy the freedom he’d bargained for, Malik was left alone to untangle the unnamed things in his chest. The knowledge that the only man to understand how unwelcome these _gifts_ and _honors_ he’d been given following Solomon’s Temple was the one that caused the disaster. 

He hated Altair, freshly, every day he pulled himself out of the bureau and left to abuse the freedom he did not deserve.

\--

Al Mualim sent him a series of tasks to pass among the assassins that lived in the city. The ones that had made homes and found wives in this city. Those that walked the streets and gathered information and worried over being caught. 

One of the youngest was a man seven years Malik’s senior named Nidal who only came after Altair had left. 

“If you came earlier, you would have a warm meal,” Malik told him. 

But Nidal said, “I have heard of your wife, Rafiq. I extend my deepest congratulations that you know the joy that comes with marriage but I have my own wife to make my meals.” It was an objection that few (if any) of the other informants had offered him. One or two had been suspicious of Altair’s ability to serve a meal and one or two had asked if the food was worth eating but none of them had simply refused him. Nidal did not smile when he said the words or speak them with any irony. “Has there been news of a new assignment, Rafiq?”

“Yes,” Malik said. “A slave merchant named Talal is coming to Jerusalem to gather men to sell as merchandise. You and your brothers need to gather what information there is to know about him. Al Mualim will send a man when we have a better idea of the target and his intentions.” 

“Of course, Rafiq,” Nidal said. “I will tell my brothers and we will do our best.” He hesitated by the counter (only a moment) before turning and leaving again. “I will return when I have information to share.”

\--

Then there were the novices that came in the afternoon of the fifth day after Malik received word they were coming. He welcomed them in, “how has your travels been?”

“Fine,” Thabit (the clear leader of the group) said. “We encountered no troubles, Rafiq. We are hungry and tired and would like to rest here a night before we begin our journey back to Masyaf.” 

“Sit, I will bring you something to eat while we wait for my wife to return and make a proper meal.”

Thabit’s lip curled at the words. “It is true then? I was not in Masyaf when Robert De Sable attacked but I heard it from others in my class that Altair was stripped of his rank and put where he belonged.” Thabit looked at his arm and his glare softened. “It is a shame that it had to take such a tragedy to prove what many already knew to be true. I was sorry to hear of Kadar’s death, Rafiq. He was one of the best of us.”

Kadar was not ranked among the best of any group of assassins but it was kind to say so. Malik nodded his head and waved Thabit away from his counter. “Thank you,” he said as an afterthought.

\--

Altair came to their bed smelling of soap and blood. Whatever fight had delayed his return had not injured him but his knuckles were cracked from the effort of scrubbing the novice’s robes clean. His mouth was crusted red at the edges which suggested he had been biting the inside of his lips again. Malik was already comfortable when Altair stepped around him to lay at his side, digging under the spare cushions to find his sword. He sat at Malik’s side and held the blade in his hands for a long moment. 

“Come,” Malik said.

“No,” Altair said. He pulled the sword far enough from the scabbard to run his thumb across the blade and the tension in his shoulders did not ease but increase. “Don’t you tire of it?” His face was turned away from Malik but the tone of his words was a warbling, frightened sound. “Is that the trouble with _men_ , they cannot think of anything but sticking their cocks where they aren’t wanted?”

“You said you would not deny me,” Malik said. He sat up and looked at Altair’s stone-like face, the distance in his eyes. “This brings me joy, the joy of knowing you find it distasteful even as your body yields to mine so hot-and-wet.”

Altair turned his face to look directly at him then, seemed to focus on his face as he said, “not tonight, Malik.” The words (not the expression) seemed like a question and not a resolve. The trembling (unknown) weakness in them echoing backward to the day Altair had allowed himself to be fucked simply because Malik had been furious at him. Sex was a tool that omegas were born with the knowledge to use. It shouldn’t have surprised him that Altair would use it to manipulate him then; (it surprised him that he allowed it). But this was something entirely different. 

“Tell me why and I will not.”

Oh-and-Altair’s scoff named him the worst of men. The thoughtless ones that took whatever they wanted regardless. Altair belonged to Malik through the contract of marriage and had given the right to fuck him with his own words. Malik took nothing Altair did not give but the roll of his eyes dismissed him as little more than a rapist. “Because I do not want to be touched,” Altair said.

“Fine,” Malik hissed at him.

\--

 

Altair was gone before Malik woke up. His meal was waiting for him in the outer room and the novices that had spent the night were eating their own with obvious enjoyment. Even Thabit who had complained of the taste the day before, ate with relish. Malik looked through the open doorway to see Altair doing pull ups off the still-closed grate. His legs were bent at the knee as the lifted himself up. Every upward motion bring a graceful arch to his back and a quiver of useless strength in his arms. He realized he was being watched (he almost always did) and dropped down to the ground again, dusted his hands against his clothes and opened the bureau for the day. 

“Thank you, Rafiq,” the novices said when they were finished eating and prepared to leave. Their robes were scrubbed bright and clean and they were lazy with too much food as they went. It was only Thabit that laid his dishes down and said, “safety and peace, brother.” Then they were gathering their things and leaving. 

It was not until the shuffle of their limbs faded away from the roof that Malik noticed his wife had gone missing and that he was alone. Altair had been a master assassin (a supposed master of stealth) there was little reason to think he wasn’t capable of sneaking out of the bureau if he wished. There was just the matter of his unsettled words and his confusing stone face to make Malik walk out to look up through the grate and wonder where he had gone. 

\--

There was always some manner of work to do in the bureau. He had reached out to the Rafiq in Acre and the one in Damascus to establish a better chain of communication and to extend the offer of help if they ever required it. Assassins were secretive by nature (and for good reason) but bureaus were the last bit of home to comfort their brothers while they separated from Masyaf. The Rafiqs were meant to serve as counsellors and advisors. There was no one (but one another) to offer the same to them. Save for Al Mualim who sent many messages but did not speak at length about any topic. 

He sent short instructions, listed his expectations and trusted Malik to uphold the Creed and guide his brothers in their coming trials. 

Yes, there was always something to do in the bureau even if it was just the frustrating task of tracing maps for men who needed them. 

\--

Altair came back before midday. He was pleased-with-himself, renewed of strength of vigor without any of the telltale signs of a recent fight. There was pink back in his face where it had been pale and cold the day before. 

“What have you done?” Malik asked. He watched Altair climb the bookcase up to his little corner where he kept what few things he had brought with him. Weapons mostly. 

“Nothing you would understand or approve of.” He let one of his legs hang over the edge of the wooden planks as he set into his daily task of caring for his unused weapons. 

“Why would you do something you are aware I would not approve of? You should behave the same away from me as you would with me present. This is what makes a good wife. Tell me what you did.” He expected a fight, some scuffle over the details of Altair’s day. Perhaps some of the same flat-toned indifference that Altair used to explain the matters of sex (he obviously felt Malik should already know) and his own unique biology. 

“I trailed the black-eyed novice,” Altair said. “I watched him push and shove his way through the streets, heedless of the attention he brought to himself. I waited until he knocked a woman over and when he ran from the guards I threw an obstacle into his path. Then I sat and watched him fight for his life.” Oh-but-he-sounded so _pleased_ with himself. “Do not worry, Malik. His brothers came to save him and he has learned no lesson.”

“You intentionally put him in harm’s way? You broke our creed again?” There was a shout building in Malik’s chest, some echo of the same fight they had been having for years. He was opening his mouth to demand Altair face him and answer for his crimes.

But there was, “ _your_ creed, Malik. I am an assassin no longer. The boy deserved what he got.”

“Is your pride so important to you that you would risk the novice’s life simply for laughing at you while you scrubbed his clothes?” Malik demanded. “Is there something so wrong with you that you are not able to understand the scale of punishment should fit the weight of the crime?”

Altair laughed at that, leaned outward from his chore to look at Malik on the ground beneath him. “You are blind,” he said. Then he set down the knife he had been cleaning and jumped from the planks to the floor. He was swift (always the fastest of his class) and jumped across the counter to slam into Malik so their bodies hit the bookshelves and it was only Altair’s arms up on either side of them that kept a scant inch of space between them. His breath was an unwelcome puff of heat on Malik’s face and the full-brunt of his anger was red spots on his cheeks when he said, “this is how he watched me. This is how he stood when he whispered his foul thoughts into my ear. Always like this,” Altair said softly. His mouth was so close to Malik’s cheek his lips felt like a physical touch against his face. “This is all the respect the boy could afford you. You smiled at his face while he complained about my food and you enjoyed how poorly he treated me. But what would you have done if you had seen him bent across my back whispering how he’d like to fuck me.”

Malik shoved him and Altair let himself be pushed. The giddy pride was still caught in the fullness of his mouth. He had gotten the revenge he required for the slights against him. Once from watching Thabit fight for his life and now from Malik. “Why did you not say as much last night?”

“They may say what they wish,” Altair said simply. “You have said the same as he did. Said it loudly and as often as you pleased. I shared those rooms with you, _husband_. I had no choice but to hear it when I was an assassin. Al Mualim forbid me from seeking vengeance for your words, said that it was just the way of men and if I could not bear it I did not belong.” And his eyes went very bright and he took a step forward, “do you want to fuck me now, Malik? Do you want to push me on the ground and remind yourself which is the man and which is the wife? Do you imagine that I’ve forgotten since the last time?”

“I imagine you have yet to figure it out,” Malik countered. “If you are so bothered by _words_ , you have done yourself a great disservice in staying where you didn’t belong.”

Altair rolled his eyes. “I like your lectures better when they are delivered with your cock. I have never cared for your words.” Then he was turning to walk away, the whole of the conversation done and Malik irrelevant. 

“Then come put yourself across this counter and I will show you what my words cannot seem to,” Malik snapped at him. And Altair turned his head (but not his body) to look at him. That same strange-look was in his face, the way it had been when he goaded Malik into a fight and fell on his back without being asked (legs open and helpful hands pulling Malik into place). He stepped toward him with his fingers pulling at the laces of his pants. “I don’t want you,” Malik said when Altair was close enough to touch. “I don’t want to look at you, go inside.”

This seemed to offend him worse than fucking him might have. Altair did not argue the point with him (seemed unable to even speak) but turned and shoved the door to the interior rooms open and was gone. The silence left in the wake of his anger was a sudden loud nothing.


	11. Chapter 11

Altair hated closed-in-rooms with no exits. He hated it worse than he hated anything. There was no door to separate the bedroom from the store room or he might have ripped it from its place. When the cornered-and-trapped-and-helpless feeling had pounded its way out of his chest and into his hands he lapsed into the only method he knew to smother it. He ran back-and-forth and back-and-forth. He stripped his shirt off when it became soaked with sweat and grabbed his sword from under its pile of pillows and ran through his forms. He fought against the invisible phantoms.

When his body was singing with exhaustion he closed his fist around the sword in its scabbard and slept.

\--

It was morning again, Malik making grumpy noises behind him, before Altair woke up. He jerked upright and threw himself backward away from the sound of the man moving. (Away from the idea that he had been sleeping so deeply he had not even heard Malik enter the room and lay down to sleep.) He kicked Malik in the thigh in his effort to flee and knocked his head against the wall that was far closer than he estimated. One of his hands was out in front of him and the other was clutching the scabbard as the world spun and righted itself. 

“So you are not dead,” Malik said.

Altair blinked at him. 

“I am in no mood to speak to you,” Malik said. He got out of their bed. His chest bare (unusual for him) and the flex of muscles beneath his unmarked skin a mesmerizing flinch of motion. He was standing before Altair even managed to be offended by his words. “As you denied me twice against your own word, you have earned the right to stay in the bureau for two days and nights.”

“I did not deny you twice,” Altair said so quickly he did not have time to think the words over before they were out. “I would have given you what you wanted. You denied yourself.”

Malik shook his clothes out before he set to pulling them back on. His early fumbling with working out how to dress himself had improved in the weeks since they arrived at Jerusalem but he was still little better than a small child pawing at his own clothes. When he managed to get his head through the hole meant for it and his left arm tucked into the half-sleeve, he said, “I will not be manipulated by you. Sex should not be a weapon or a tool used to manipulate others. It is my right as your husband.”

“A right you denied yourself. I did not.”

“You denied me when you made it clear that if I took you, I would be no better than you imagined the novice to be.” Malik crouched in front of him, spread his hand across Altair’s left cheek and pressed his thumb against his bottom lip. “I do not need to fuck you to know that you are my wife, Altair. I need only remember what you have taken from me and how poor a replacement your passionless body is. I _will not_ allow you to punish me for taking what is mine by making me a villain in my own bed.” Then he kissed Altair on the mouth with his thumb and fingers digging into his jaw like talons. 

Altair shoved him backward and Malik used the momentum to rise to his feet again. “This is what you truly think?” he demanded. “Wives are nothing more than someone to make your meals and take your cock?”

“And birth my sons,” Malik added.

“That is the fate you wanted for your brother?” Altair hissed at him. “That must have been why he was so frightened of it. Why he asked me how I knew I was an omega and why I would stay when there were men like _you_.”

It was a fight he was hoping to have but Malik quirked an eyebrow upward and then picked up his robe and pulled it on. “Make my meal, wife.” Then he left and Altair ground his teeth together to keep from shouting at his retreating back. 

\--

There was nobody to distract Malik the first day. One of his informants came only to say they had not learned anything (useful) about a man named Talal. He was gone again before Malik could convince him to have a meal and get his clothes washed. Altair had no desire to listen to their conversation but it was hard to ignore as he worked out the blinding fury in his gut. 

By midday, the sun was a blistering heat through the open squares of the grate and Altair’s arms were jelly like as he forced them to lift his body again. His hands were numb with pain and he still had not broken through the shaking uneasiness of _being trapped_. Freedom was a quick dash out through the bureau roof and the whole of the city (and world) beyond it.

“You surprise me,” Malik said when he had gotten bored of his mundane tasks.

Altair did not respond to him. He put his arms one at a time through the grate and pulled his body up parallel to it, felt the satisfying tightness of every part of his body and the peaceful concentration required to maintain the position. When he dropped to the floor again, Malik was still standing there. The look of honest appreciation was different than the hostile ownership of that morning or the malicious lust that usually twisted Malik’s face into something ugly. “What do you want?” Altair asked.

“Food,” Malik said.

“And then?”

“Then, I must return to work.”

\--

The whole of the day passed in a slow drag of nothing. Altair cleaned his weapons and went through the useless contents of the store room, throwing out what could not be saved and bringing all of the poorly cared for weapons out to make them useful again. It was night before he finished and he served Malik his meal and slept in his bed. He woke in the morning and watched Malik get dressed (without asking for sex first) and felt unsettled and disgusted by the confusion.

“Was my brother afraid of becoming an omega?” Malik asked in the middle of the morning. Altair was napping (or attempting to force himself into it) in the bed he’d made for himself. From where he was laying he could easily see Malik moving around behind his counter. He had watched him frown over the ink and the papers for the maps. He had watched him organize the space beneath his shelf with plumes of dust billowing out into his face that made him sneeze again and again. Then Malik had fallen into making his maps, the only thing that seemed to bring any true peace to him. 

“Yes,” Altair said.

“He spoke to you about it?”

“Briefly, the morning before his death.” Altair rolled completely onto his side and put his arm under his head. He watched Malik’s stooping shoulders and the top of his head as he worked studiously on the maps. His hand did not waver at the words, his concentration did not falter. “If his experience in the barracks was similar to mine; I imagine he had enough reason to be frightened.”

“Nobody hurt you,” Malik said.

Altair bared his teeth at those words. “Cripple,” he said. “Leper.”

Malik looked up at him then. The instant red blush of offended pride making his face puff out in that attractive edge of rage. He put his quill down rather than snap it and straightened to his full height. 

“I have not hurt you,” Altair said. “These are light words, pale in comparison to the ones that were whispered about me. Even our teachers were full of words they liked to call me. Bitch. Whore. There was one who called me ‘breeder’ and never anything else. I had no control over my body. Kadar had no control over his. Why shouldn’t he be afraid?”

“He wasn’t an omega,” Malik said.

“But looked like one. How noble do you really believe your brothers are, Malik? How honorable can any man be when he is continuously _assaulted_ by something he desires? Who can blame any man for taking what is being clearly offered to him?”

Malik’s breath was that leathery-snake-hiss again. “My brother offered nothing.”

Altair laughed. “Not with his words but his body was built to satisfy a man. His skin was soft and his face was as pretty as a woman’s. He was small in build with a curve at his waist that—”

“Stop it,” Malik snapped at him.

Altair sat up, his left leg hanging over the side of the wooden planks. “The way he walked invited them, didn’t it? The way his hips _swayed_. No man could be blamed for taking something when it was being so _obviously_ offered.”

Malik could have killed him if Altair had been close enough. “You are responsible for his death; do you have to disgrace his memory too?”

“It is not his memory I disgrace, Malik. These are the words you have said. These are the things our brothers said. These were the words Abbas said when Al Mualim asked why I attacked him.” It was too much to hope that Malik could understand what he was being told, but it was satisfying that red anger on his face with enemy to direct it at. “I would not disgrace your brother,” Altair said after a pause.

“If it was so terrible, why did you stay?” Malik asked.

At this, Altair half-laughed and said, “because I am stronger and faster than you. Because I am _better_ and all of you _deserved_ to know it but you did not deserve what you wanted from me.”

Malik looked straight back at him, the same defiance that had driven him to compete (uselessly) against Altair in their youth. Malik’s resolve and Malik’s strength were admirable qualities that any man should hope to possess. “You are not better. Your pride led you to ruin. What use is your speed and your strength now?”

Altair had no rebuttal for the words, nothing but the returning notion of simply _leaving_. The half-thought notion of disobedience warring with every part of his body that remembered (in vivid, black-blue detail,) the price of disobedience. He laid back down and Malik picked up his quill to work on his maps again.

\--

“Strip,” Malik said when they were both in the bedroom that evening. Altair took his clothes off and left them folded on his side of their little bed. Malik motioned him down on his back and Altair laid. Malik knelt between his thighs, all bare skin, and looked at his body until Altair had to bit his cheek to keep from moving away from the scrutiny. Malik leaned across his body—did not kiss him—but rubbed his rough cheek against his neck and then his chest.

“What are you doing?” Altair asked.

Malik sucked at his nipple and the wet-pull of it made Altair flinch away from him. Malik looked up at him and put his forearm across his ribs to hold him still. He amused himself with leaving little pink marks on Altair’s chest for a matter of minutes and finding it to be unsatisfying, sat back on his knees. He wet his own fingers before he pushed them into Altair. “Perhaps you’re broken,” he said.

Altair snorted.

Malik fucked him, said, “put your legs around me,” and seemed to especially like it when he did. It was useful knowledge to have to help the man finish quicker. 

\--

But the day after, Altair was free-again and after sucking Malik’s cock (something he was quickly figuring out was nothing more than a request born of Malik’s spite) he ran as far from the bureau as he could manage without leaving Jerusalem. He was lounging in a crowd, enjoying the anonymity of it and smirking over the stupidity of idle conversation when Altair first saw the man.

He would have known the man anywhere, the sound of his voice as he spoke brashly overtop of the men following him. His skin a darker shade than the average man’s and his hair in tight braids close to his head. The ugly shape of his face clear even at the distance between them. Altair lurched forward on the bench, knocked a dozing fat man to the side and barely heard his objection. The commotion brought the man’s attention but Altair (moving on instinct) was already stepping up next to a set of young wives, copying their motions and blending seamlessly. 

By the time he found a corner to go around the man was gone, even the sound of his voice was lost. Altair stood where the man had been, looking for some sign of his direction when one of the poor wretched insane men shoved him from behind. The idiot man’s face was gray and his teeth were missing and Altair did not even have time to make a choice before he snapped the man’s neck and left his body where it landed. He was running-and-running, away from the sounds of screams. 

\--&\--

Nidal came after Altair left in a way that suggested he lurked outside of the walls and waited to see him go. His face half covered and his humble head ducking down in greeting as he said, “good morning, Rafiq. I have some news that will please Al Mualim to know.”

“Good morning, Nidal,” Malik said. The information was important, he had received another message that morning asking if anything had been found out about Talal and Malik had already begun a reply to say he hadn’t. (One that he didn’t imagine would be met with any degree of happiness from the Grandmaster.) “What have you learned?”

“Talal is in our city. He has set up a warehouse in the rich district and his band of men take men, women and children from the streets. The guard are aware of his actions but he buys their silence with regular bribes. From what we have seen and heard, there is no man in his company that would not die rather than betray him.”

“Thank you,” Malik said. “Al Mualim will be pleased to hear we have located him and verified his actions.”

Nidal smiled. “We will continue to track him, Rafiq. When Al Mualim sends a man to end his life, we will know the best time and place to strike.” 

“Very good,” Malik said. Nidal was ready to go, satisfied he had done his job well but Malik stopped him with by clearing his throat. “Why do you avoid Altair?”

Nidal paused a moment there. It was clear whatever he wished to say was not something he felt was a popular or well-received opinion. For a moment, Malik was sure that he would deny he was avoiding anyone (if only to spare himself the effort of saying his true opinion). Then he pulled the cloth away from his face and looked right into Malik’s face. He said, “I do not agree with what was done to him. Altair has proven himself a competent, loyal member of our brotherhood. He is arrogant and unlikeable with a great disdain for any of those below his rank but his failures can be counted on a single hand. While it is true that what happened at Solomon’s Temple was a tragedy, there is no man that can say it would have been any different if Altair had been replaced by any man. Perhaps he should have been disciplined, perhaps he should have lost a rank but he did not deserve to be married to anyone, certainly not to one of the only two men who would delight in humiliating him further.”

(Ah, yes, so there was good reason for Nidal to consider lying then.) 

“What other man would also delight in humiliating him?” Malik asked. His voice surprised him for how level and fair it was. There was nothing in his chest that shared the same even temper.

“Abbas,” Nidal said. “I have told you this because I have often heard men speak of how highly they hold your judgment. I trust that even if the words do not please you that you will hear them and think on them and draw from them what I intended to say.” He paused again, looked indecisive and then said, “safety and peace, Rafiq.”

Malik waved his hand to send him away and Nidal went.

\--

There was not much time to dwell on Nidal’s words. Two travelers dropped in through the roof not even a full hour later. One of them instantly recognizable as one of the men who had trained the older boys when Malik started as a novice. He was a massive man, rounded from his chest to his knees and scarred from years of service. He was missing his right eye and most of the fingers on his left hand. With him, whippet thin and tiny in comparison was a Rafiq that Malik did not recognize. He watched them drinking water in the outer room and waited until they came into the interior room before greeting them.

“Hello Falah, Rafiq.”

The thin man said, “my name is Fakih. We have brought new maps, gathered from all across the holy land.” He pulled at the bag that was weighing down his shoulder and laid it out across the counter. “We hoped to find a warm meal and a decent bed.”

“We have heard whispers that Jerusalem has been blessed with a helpful wife for all our brothers as well as a Rafiq.” Falah’s voice was loud as the pound of a thousand feet. The force of it expelling out of his round, red face with enough vigor that it landed like spittle across the still drying maps across the counter. “We were hoping to see such a sight.”

“My wife is away at the moment,” Malik said. “I thank you for the maps,” he said to Fakih. “It was unfortunate they came too late to help Haydar.”

Fakih nodded his head and Falah looked around the bureau with the keen eye of man who had seen the interior of countless such rooms. He said, “a mapmaker who lost his way, shameful way to die.” 

Malik did not like him. He had not ever liked him. But he liked him less when the massive man turned to look at him and nodded at his left side. “Did you lose your arm in the attempt to bed your wife? I was not in Masyaf to see it happen but I imagine it was quite a fight to wrestle Umar’s boy into submission.” He was so pleased with his jest that it came like a sweat on his face and he laughed. Fakih (obviously used to his poor humor) laughed with him. 

“Sit,” Malik said when he could think of nothing else to say to them. “I will bring you something to eat while you wait for a better meal.” They went to the table, weary with travel and shedding their burdens as they walked. By the time they were sitting together the dust and dirt they’d brought with them was all around them like mountain ranges. They laid their weapons and their bags out like a maze to dance through (careless, really). 

The sound of the bells made both of them laugh. Malik went out toward the grate to close it. The bruise on his side where he braced the hook was a swollen knot (after repeated abuse). He had nearly closed it when he heard, “wait!” and Altair slid in through the small gap and landed on his side in the dirt. He was covered in blood but back on his feet in the next instant to take the hook from Malik and lock the grate. 

“What have you done?” Malik demanded. Altair looked at him as if he were crazy and then down at his clothes and the blood that was all over his hands and sprayed across his face. He opened his mouth and then closed it and dropped down to start scrubbing it away in the water. “Clean yourself and make a meal, we have guests.”

\--

Altair reappeared, dressed in fresh clothes, carrying heaping dishes of a savory-smelling dish. He walked through the maze of fallen things and laid the dishes out on the table. Falah, always loud with his unwelcome observations, looked at him with obvious joy. He said, “your father despaired over you! He said you would never make something of yourself. If only he had lived long enough to see you now he might not have died with so much shame.” Then the man slapped Altair on the ass with a laugh. “Do you share all your wifely duties with your husband’s brothers?”

Malik could have predicted the exact order of events in the few seconds he had to think before Altair broke the man’s wrist. He let out a sigh in time with Falah’s excitable shout of pain and the scrape of the stool across the floor as Fakih rose to his feet. 

Fakih—thin as a bone—slapped Altair as he grabbed at the knife still tucked into his belt. Altair grabbed the knife and backhanded Fakih hard enough to spin him in a half-circle and send him sprawling to the ground. Altair kicked Falah’s stool out from under him, brought his broken hand up to slam against the table and moved to drive the knife through his helpless palm.

“Altair!” Malik shouted. 

Altair looked over his shoulder at him. “A man should know better than to touch another man’s wife,” he said and then he drove the knife through Falah’s massive hand. When it was done he released his hold on him and walked away. Fakih (still on the floor) was gaping up at him with red-faced shock as Altair pushed through the swinging doors and stopped just long enough to stare at Malik. It was clear from the look on his face that he was waiting to be punished. 

“I’ll need bandages,” Malik said.

The words surprised Altair but he said nothing, only nodded before he went through the hidden door. Malik looked at the abused men and watched with some satisfaction as Falah pried the knife out of his own swelling hand. The blood seeping out of the wound already running off the side of the table. “You should not touch my wife,” Malik said.

Fakih was recovering enough to open his mouth, “you would allow this?”

Altair reappeared to drop a bundle of bandages on the counter and Fakih flinched at the sight of him. 

“I encourage this,” Malik said. “No man touches my wife but me. When you leave my bureau be sure to tell the others you meet the same.” Then he looked at Altair and saw the quirk of his smile pulling at his lips. Altair looked sideways at him and seemed to nod before he went back to the interior rooms again. 

\--

Fakih bandaged Falah’s wound and set his broken wrist. Malik watched from behind his counter as they huddled together and made foul faces at him he thought that he would not see. Malik waited until they had finished binding the bleeding wound before he came to clean up the blood on the table. 

“A man who cannot control his wife does not deserve one,” Falah said. “Umar beat his son twice a day and barely kept him check. You have been too lenient with him and he has bent you to his will. Al Mualim will hear of this.”

Malik looked at his reddened, round face and the rolling wetness of his single eye. “Al Mualim _will_ hear of this. He will hear that you came into my bureau and made a joke of me and the hospitality that was extended to you. He will know that you grabbed at my wife and got what you deserved. Perhaps he will hear of how even after you had not learned enough to know to silence your tongue. Be thankful it was Altair that struck you because if it had been me, you would have lost the hand you laid on my wife. I will tell Al Mualim all of this.” 

Fakih cleared his throat from the other side of the table. “Thank you, Rafiq. This meal is far better than the others we have suffered in our travels. We have spent too much time away from our home and we have forgotten our manners.”

Falah could not have forgotten what he had never had. He looked back at Malik with defiance before Fakih cleared his throat again and Falah looked down at his now-cold meal. 

“You are welcome to stay the night,” Malik said. “And to enjoy a meal in the morning before you continue on your way.”

\--

It was dark before Malik went into the interior rooms. He expected to find Altair in a mad scramble of moving limbs, pushing himself far past the point of exhaustion to earn his sleep. He did not expect to see the man sitting with his back to the wall, hands across sword balanced perfectly across his bent knees as he stared at the door without seeing it. 

“Are they still there?” Altair asked without blinking.

“Yes,” Malik said. “They leave in the morning.”

Altair blinked then, looked at him. “What do you want from me tonight?”

“Whose blood did you wash off today?”

Altair’s face betrayed nothing. “The guard that caught me. I need a weapon, Malik. What do you want from me to allow me to carry one?”

“You would not need a weapon if you were capable of avoiding trouble,” Malik said. “You are not an assassin, Altair. You have no right to kill anyone. You have to put it out of your head and find a new way to live now.”

“Do you want me to praise you while you fuck me?” Altair asked. “Do you want me to enjoy what you do? I can make it seem real if that is what will please you.”

Malik thought of Falah’s voice and the look on his face when he said ‘Umar beat his son twice a day’ and thought of the echoes of that truth. Everyone knew that Umar beat Altair. For years, they had lauded it as a credit to his name that he raised such a strong child despite Altair’s many innate failings and deficits of character. “Why don’t you simply take it? I cannot stop you.”

“Give me permission to take a blade, Malik.”

“I will think on it,” Malik said, he prepared himself for bed and laid down but Altair did not move. “Do not kill those men,” he said quietly. “That is what I require of you tonight.”

Altair’s laugh was brief and airy. “That is a far more difficult request than you realize.”


	12. Chapter 12

Altair slept (eventually) and Malik made him stay in the interior rooms without any indication as to whether it was meant to spare him or the idiots that took up space in their bureau. It was not an unwelcome command with yesterday’s exhaustion still dragging him into sleep. He laid back down and woke up again later in the day. By then, the two assassins had gone and it was only Malik in the bureau.

Gratitude was not a feeling he was accustom to feeling toward Malik. He was not accustom to feeling much toward Malik (aside from triumph over his meager attempts to compete with him). He hesitated at the doorway between the counter and the open grate of freedom. There was a man he needed to find (and kill) but there was the uncomfortable feeling of _owing_ Malik something. 

“Have you thought of an answer?” Altair asked.

Malik looked up from the message he had been writing. He looked tired (harassed) but did not attempt to feign ignorance. “Yes. I have thought of an answer.”

“Then say it.”

“Your impatience, arrogance and disregard for human life is why we are here, Altair. Our failure was assured the moment you took the old man’s life without reason. Haydar said this to me before he left, that you are not driven by faith in our Creed. If not a belief in our purpose, what would motivate you to kill? What crimes did the guard that you killed yesterday commit that were worth his life?” The pause there was only long enough to Malik to gesture in the air and take a breath. “You could not name them if your own life depended on it. You have no respect for the lives of others. If I allow you a weapon, it would be the same as saying I encourage you to continue to act so rashly. I do not.”

“The guard attacked _me_ ,” Altair said.

“You were trained as an assassin. You are lethal with nothing more than your hands. In this, you have always excelled. It was restraint that you lacked—and still lack. Prove to me that you understand life is valuable and I will allow you a weapon.” Malik deserved the robe he wore, if for no other reason than for the condescending tone of authority in his voice. The _wisdom_ he felt he so obviously had to bestow upon the world was stale and ridiculous in practice. 

“How should I do that?”

“Do not kill anyone,” Malik said. “Return to me as you have left. Without blood, bruises or evidence of fights that did not need to be had. You are a wife now, and there is no cause for the guards to notice you unless you are doing something you should not.”

Altair scoffed at the words and turned his back to Malik to leave him. He did not listen for his name to be called to drag him back but go to his freedom. It was later in the day than he would have liked, but there were still many hours of daylight to search for the man he had seen the day before. 

\--

An afternoon of searching left him with no better idea of the man’s name or what his purpose in Jerusalem was. Altair walked (in the streets) toward the bureau and shuffled past the muffled shout for help coming from around the side of a building. He turned his head toward it (thought of what Malik said to him) and then resolved to leave it be. The voice was a man’s, most likely a scholar, most likely ‘caught’ doing something he had not done. The guards’ normal level of harassment seemed to have tripled since he arrived in the city. The fighting from all sides was driving the people who lived in this city to a fever pitch. 

He took three steps away from the plea of help, heard the punch of fist-on-flesh and the pitiful yelp of pain, and let out a sigh. Malik’s commandment was a repeat of the same thing his instructors had told him again-and-again. The sanctity and value of life was immeasurable and yet Altair had been taught to kill since he was barely seven years old. The creed that hung over his head the whole of his life (full of contradictions) had been removed and in its place his (compulsive) rigid obedience to his sullen husband demanded the same contradictions.

Altair went around the building and considered the situation. There were four guards and one scholar—an old man, shrinking away from being hit again. It would not have taken much effort to disarm them. More effort if he spared their lives but not a great deal of effort.

“What’s that?” one of the guards was saying.

“Run,” the scholar said to him. “They mean no good.”

Altair looked around himself, for any sign of another person and then back at the guards. He smiled as the realization sank in. Too many years in the robes of an assassin had conditioned his mind and body into the illusion of being a man. Stripped of those clothes, he was an _omega_. The stature of his body was off-putting to some and intensely appealing to others, but all men were aware of his true sex almost immediately. 

“I will not run,” Altair said. 

“That is the biggest one I’ve ever seen,” one of the guards said.

The scholar, kicked free of the imprisoning hands that held him, scrambled to his feet to rush over to stand in front of Altair. “You must go,” he said.

“You misunderstand,” Altair said to him. “I do not run because I do not fear them. Go now and do not worry.” He pushed the scholar to the side and turned his attention back to the guards that were moving toward him. They were heavy armed (against dangerous citizens like this old man still shrinking visibly at the thought of leaving Altair to his obvious fate) but they were dull with lust. 

One of them moved to grab at him and he stepped to the side. Another laughed and Altair ducked under his outstretched hands to come up between the two near the end of the line. He smiled at them without any hint at amusement and it made the lechery on their face turn violent. “You will not be smiling long,” the man said.

The scholar was going now, slipping back around the building and away from danger. 

“I cannot kill you,” Altair said to the men. 

They laughed at the statement. Then one said, “come here, and I will not hurt you.”

Altair considered the words. “I don’t imagine you would. Your cock must be no bigger than a finger.” When the man’s face went red with rage, Altair turned and ran. The sound of their heavy feet and the repeated clang of their weapons following at his back. He dove into a crowd and wove his way through a line of women carrying their burdens homeward. The guards slammed into them and the women shrieked in outrage while the men who had been idly watching shouted. It was a noisy din of sound as Altair found a stack of barrels to climb and was up onto the roofs of the city. 

\--

Malik said nothing to him about the dusty state of his clothes or the soured smell of having spent twenty minutes hiding in an abandoned roof top garden. He said nothing at all until his meal was served to him (later than normal). “Al Mualim is sending an assassin to assassinate a man in our city. He says it is a young assassin, recently promoted.” Malik told him about the assassins that were coming to the bureau and when they were most likely to arrive. Altair nodded along to show that he heard-but-didn’t-care. He was looking at the new maps Malik had received the day before, trying to make sense of the new legend to mark guard posts and the Christian and Saracen armies camped between the cities. “I hate you,” Malik said and it was so plain and so even there was hardly enough venom to make the words believable.

“You have said as much.”

“Rauf wanted you to train his stupid boys at Masyaf. Al Mualim hints that he wants you to go with this new assassin. You are a disgrace to the brotherhood, an _omega_ that has no place among us and even the men who admit openly that you are a prideful monster still seek you out for assistance.”

Altair straightened away from the maps. “You have said as much.”

“You will not go with the assassin when he comes.”

Altair shrugged. “You have—”

“Stop,” Malik interrupted. He finished his meal and closed the bureau. His agitation evident in every motion of his body. Altair waited for him in their room, considered pushing his dear husband against a wall and sucking him off just to spare them both the chore of having to say-and-hear the command. He did not, but the thought was present in the forefront of his mind as Malik came into the room. He sat on their bed, looked at Altair’s sword (once Rauf’s precious sword) and then up at him. Some contemptuous thing caught in his mouth and the taste must have been terrible because it made his whole face pucker. Then he laid down with his back to Altair.

\--

Sufficiently recovered in the morning, Malik fucked him sitting with his back against the wall and Altair facing him. It was his least favorite of all positions and from the pleased pinkness on his _husband’s_ face he must have known it. 

\--

Once free, Altair went back to where he had heard the man speak days ago. He walked in circles, listened for some talk of the man—he must have been someone important—and heard nothing but talk of the despicable war everywhere he went. 

He was distracted by the effort of looking-and-listening for some catch of a name that might be familiar to him, for some sight of the man whose face (and body) was burnt into his memory, when his arms were caught in a hard grip and yanked backward. Altair stumbled and fell against a body not so different in size than his own and that jumbled momentum was used against him as he was pushed against a blind corner of a building. The lone mangy animal that had been scouting this empty alley looked up at the intruders and then went back to sniffing the dirt. 

“Let me look at you,” the man holding him against the building said. He had a familiar look to him, a purposeful sort of knowledge in his eyes as he plucked at the neckline of Altair’s clothes. He was delighted to find no sign of teeth marks at his neck. “Oh,” he said. 

Altair struggled but the man put a knife to his throat. Without any weapons of his own, and with no obvious weapons to steal from the man, there was a moment of serene acceptance that he was truly captured. It floundered in the center of his head and turned liquid in his gut long enough for this man’s face to come into clear focus. 

“My master won’t mind if I have a little taste before I deliver you to his warehouse,” the man said. “He likes his goods a little _roughed_ up.”

Altair could not force fear into his voice in much the same way he could not fake sincerity, pity or interest. The most he could manage was the willing slant of his hips and the submissive parting of his legs. He tightened his hands on the man’s arms in a way that was not meant to be offensive. The knife at his throat pressed hard enough to his skin to nearly draw blood before Altair put one leg around the man to pull him close. 

“Smart,” the man said. “I’ve seen you here many times. I have talked myself out of enjoying you for days. I shouldn’t have wasted my time.” He leaned in to kiss Altair and when denied that pleasure hissed and moved to mouth at his throat. His body an insistent press against him and the smell of his unwashed clothes a noxious odor. “Your father should not have let you leave his house this morning.”

Altair said, “I have no father. I am married.”

The man’s chuckle was echoed in his blunt teeth on Altair’s skin and the pressure that was sure to rip through his skin. Altair ducked out of the way, slid away from the knife but the man followed him. “Stay still or I’ll call a few friends to help me, eh.”

“Call them then,” Altair said. “It will take more of a man than you to still me.” He knocked the man’s arm back (felt the knife drag on his skin) and got his freedom with a well-placed elbow. “Tell me the name of your master and I’ll spare your life.”

The man laughed. “I do not intend to return the favor, bitch. His name is Talal and you may tell that to the devil when you arrive in hell.” 

Talal. Talal the slave merchant. The man that Malik’s informants had been searching the city for. The man the boy assassin was coming to kill later this week. Altair was struck so dumb that he did not see the man rushing toward him until their bodies knocked together and they went falling back into the dirt. The mangy dog barked at them as Altair wrestled for the knife and his freedom. 

In the end he was sitting astride the man’s chest with the knife stuck through the top of his skull and his blank-eyes staring upward toward heaven. There was no blood on his hands but dirt all over his clothes. The shaking dread in his stomach, the bitter-hateful-spike of fear-and-shame was slowly overtaking him. 

He shoved himself up and dusted the dirt from his clothes. The informants were largely useless, mostly men who could not stomach the job of taking lives or did not possess the correct skills. Most of them considered Altair beneath them, laughed at him openly whenever they had the chance, but there was the one that hid in the crowd outside of the bureau until he was sure Altair had gone.

The one Malik disliked the most. Altair was still trying to dust the feeling of filth off his clothes and skin when he stepped back out from behind the cover of the alley. It wouldn’t give and he knew that it would not. 

\--

Altair found the informant before dark, a ducking white figure in the crowd heading toward his home in the Muslim district. He was poorly prepared to be assaulted and provided little fight when Altair yanked him sideways out of the flow of traffic. The informant barely managed to have a weapon in his hand at all. Altair looked at it and then at his face. “You have information on Talal.”

“I have given that information to the Rafiq,” the informant said.

“Tell me where he is,” Altair said.

Common sense stayed the man’s tongue. He did not lower his weapon as he said, “I cannot. You are no longer an assassin. I have told the Rafiq everything I know. He has written it in his book and sent word to Al Mualim.” The words were so measured and so carefully paced there was no mistaking the intentional drag of them. If Malik had the information (and if Altair did not have to fuck it out of him) it would be easier to retrieve than to beat it from this man. “I heard one of Talal’s men was killed today.”

“Perhaps he should not have tried to steal omegas from the street,” Altair said plainly. “It is a dangerous business.”

“It is,” the informant said. “I have heard many things, about an omega who fights fearlessly against the guards. The families of the women and scholars that the omega have saved are valuable, powerful allies to have in uncertain times.”

“That is not important to me now,” Altair said. Then he left the informant and went back toward the bureau. The grate was not yet closed (although the night was growing dark) but Malik was waiting for him.

\--&\--

Altair returned just before the day had given completely way to night. He said nothing as he closed the grate in the bureau roof and then washed his hands and face in the fountain. There was a little hiss of pain when he scrubbed his neck and blood dribbling sluggishly from a thin cut on his throat. “I killed a man because he tried to rape, enslave and then kill me. I assure you that there was no value left in his life.”

Malik sighed.

“Are we going to have sex?” The words, usually a monotone demand, were even more devoid of any interest than normal. “If you are angry, I’d rather you hit me. I do not feel up to being fucked as a punishment tonight.”

“I do not—”

“Yes you do.”

The least that Malik could do was be honest about it. So he said nothing further in his own defense. He did not want to hit Altair (this time, right now) if only because he had seen others in the attempt and knew physical pain did nothing at all to deter the man from bad choices. “If you do not want—”

“I am not denying you. If you want sex, I will do it.” There was nothing more seductive than one’s wife standing three foot away in the darkness, bleeding from the neck, speaking in monotone and smelling of dirty streets. Malik could have managed, he had the sense memory of fucking Altair stored in his head and his body was pleased enough about the notion to not care about the rest. 

“I do not. I am tired; I am going to bed.” 

Altair followed after him. Malik fell asleep to the sound of Altair’s carefully moderated breathing and confused thoughts about how the man had completely changed the speed and depth of his breathing and how it always seemed to soothe him to sleep.

\--

But he woke up in the dark and Altair was gone. His sword was tucked underneath the pillows (so he was not sleeping anywhere). Malik got up and went out to the front room of the bureau, found nothing out of place and no sign of Altair. He went out to the grate and found it closed. It was virtually impossible to close from the outside and yet there was no sign of Altair inside the bureau.

Malik went back to his counter and looked around at the things there, then pulled the table and chairs over to climb on top of them and look at the bundle of things Altair kept in his hiding place. Everything was where it had been, perfectly as it had been. It was only the man himself that was missing.

He lit a lamp (a particularly tricky task he’d only barely mastered) and sat at his counter to work on the unfinished maps of the day before. It was an hour—maybe two—before Altair came back. His entrance lacked all the stealth and grace of his exit. He opened the grate from above and closed it again when he was inside. His wrist scraped bloody-and-raw from the wood catching on it when he wasn’t quick enough to avoid the swinging-open-grate. There were several papers in his hands balled up in his fist and a livid-fury on his face. 

“You should be sleeping,” he said.

“You should be sleeping next to me,” Malik said. “Where have you been?”

Altair was off-balance, completely ill-at-ease. His mannerism and his expression not so different from the poor addicts and insane men that howled at nothing in the street. There was sweat on his face and his neck and a glassy-glint in his eyes as he stared at nothing-at-all (exactly) even while he looked at Malik. “This man, Talal. Al Mualim has named him as a target. Did he give a reason?”

“Talal is a slave merchant, he takes men and women from the street and sells them wherever he can receive the best price. There has been some rumor of him supplying slaves for the armies.”

“Is that what Al Mualim said?”

“No,” Malik said. “I do not understand why it matters to you—”

Altair slapped his hand against the wet ink of the map, smeared the lines and splattered more from the little pot it was stored in. He was a vicious-mean-spirited animal looking at his own mess and then something flinched across his face and it went cold and stone-like again. “I’m tired,” he said.

“You did not tell me where you have been,” Malik said.

“Anywhere but here,” Altair said. He was going through the door to the interior rooms, leaving Malik behind as he went. Malik blew out the lamp and followed him, found him in the bedroom digging his sword out and the papers he’d been carrying absent entirely. His hands were white-knuckled-grips around the sword. “I am denying you now.”

“I was not asking,” Malik assured him. “Go sleep out there. I do not understand what has made you angry but I do not want you near me now.”

Altair went without a second’s delay.

\--

In the morning, he went out and found a meal on the counter for him and Altair sleeping up in his place (or looking as if he were) with his back to the room. The food was long cold but it was still food and Malik ate it. 

Altair did not rouse until almost the middle of the day and when he did get up, he was disoriented with deep sleep. There were lines on his cheek where it must have rested against a pillow and a long pink indention across his forearm where the sword had pressed against his flesh. He came down in a slow drop of sleepy-limbs and shuffled over to the counter. “Do you require anything of me?” His voice was still thick and he rubbed his eyes the way a child might have. 

“Not currently. You have not been as diligent with your cleaning as you promised.” 

Altair looked back over his shoulders at the dust in the bureau and didn’t seem to care one way or another about it. 

“As you denied me, you may not leave the bureau today.” 

Those words, far more impressively than the first, snapped like a tightening band through Altair’s already tense shoulders and uselessly clenched in his fists at his sides. The intensity of the anger that radiated outward from him was enough to make the air around him turn sour and the sudden closeness of the bureau stagnant. Malik assured himself that it was pleasure he felt at Altair’s unhappiness. He assured himself that he was keeping the man caged in this hellish place because he deserved it for breaking his word.

He assured himself that it was just. (He assured himself he was not concerned about the unknown thing beyond these walls that had followed Altair home.)

\--

The assassin came in the evening. A boy, one so terribly young it seemed impossible that he was even old enough to have been given the title of assassin. His round face still caught in the uncertain grip of childhood and his whole body slim beneath the white robes he wore with so much pride. “Good evening, Rafiq. I am Dani, Al Mualim has sent me.”

Altair was hiding on his perch above their heads. His legs crossed in front of him and his back to the wall where he could see everything in the room with the greatest ease. The look on his face (the blank-stone-fury) mutating ever so slightly into disbelief that mirrored Malik’s own barely contained shock. 

“How old are you?” Malik asked.

“I am seventeen,” the boy said. “This is my second assignment. I am confident, as Al Mualim is confident, that with the help of the information your informants have gathered, I will be able to complete my mission.” He looked around the bureau and smiled (faintly, strained), “this is the nicest bureau I have been to. It is very clean.”

Altair stood up (without making a sound on the rattling-old-planks) and stepped off his perch. He hit the ground with a muffled echo of noise that startled the (supposed) assassin into drawing a weapon as he spun around to face Altair. “You embarrass yourself,” his wife said.

“Altair,” the boy said. 

“Hungry?” Altair said to him. “Everyone should be offered a final meal.” But he did not stay in the room to hear the answer. 

“Final?” the boy said.

Malik waved his hand in the air. “Do not listen to him.” Malik pulled a map of the city out from under the others and laid it out. “Eat, rest, when you are ready I will share with you the information our brothers have gathered from the city.”

“Thank you, Rafiq.”


	13. Chapter 13

Dani, the fledgling assassin, listened with rapt concentration to everything Malik said about his target. He looked over the maps, poured over the possible routes and the location of the warehouse and discussed the best possible method of infiltration and assassination with Malik. Malik was patient; the boy was stupid.

Altair had found the warehouse, snuck inside of it, rifled through the many papers left in messy sprawls all across the man’s workspaces. He’d found nothing important except for a full stock of miserable men and women crying for their freedom. The men who guarded them executed quick, cutting rebuttals to their cries and when that failed to silence them, they used physical force that echoed through the building. Altair hadn’t found Talal in the warehouse but he found a ledger that listed his acquisitions and sales. Folded up tight between the pages of the book, there was a slip of paper. There were many such papers, in fact, and Altair took them all. He scouted the whole of the warehouse, committed the layout to memory and went out through the escape hatch in the roof. 

“I will go see this warehouse for myself,” Dani said. “The information that you have provided me is invaluable, Rafiq. With skill, I will be able to rid Jerusalem of this evil man.”

Malik said, “return to me before you begin your mission. Share your plan with me and I will give you a feather.”

Dani nodded. 

\--

Altair said, “you cannot send that boy to kill Talal.”

Malik made a flat, disinterested noise without looking at him. He was shuffling the map of the city to the side and reaching beneath the long counter for the box of feathers. It was dusty from disuse (possibly the last to come from the box the one that Haydar had given to Altair before he left to kill his target what seemed like years ago now). Malik dropped it without care and then finally turned to look at him. “Al Mualim believes he is ready to take on this mission.”

“Talal has men twice the size of that _child_.”

“You are so old? You are so wise that you know better than our mentor?”

“ _Your_ mentor,” Altair snapped at him (far quicker and far meaner than he intended). His patience was fraying under the weight of the unfinished things. He should have left the bureau in the morning regardless of his _husband’s_ commands. The satisfaction of Talal’s death would have easily distracted him from any punishment Malik was capable of offering. 

“You are quick to dismiss a man who was like a father to you. Was it not Al Mualim’s judgment that named you Master Assassin?”

“Was it not Al Mualim’s judgment that stripped me of my rank and married me to _you_?” Altair retorted. 

Malik let out a breath through his nose. “Unless you have a reason that I should not trust my mentor, Altair, I will continue to have faith in his wisdom. There have been no reports from the informants that Talal is a significant threat of any kind. Dani will be sufficient to dispatch him as long as he is careful.”

“That boy will die and his death will be on _you_ for allowing it,” Altair said. Then he went back up to his bed until his husband discovered a need for him.

\--

Night fell and Dani returned to tell of his ingenious plan to strike while Talal was inspecting his stock. The men who guarded him would be preoccupied with moving the men and women they held captive and Talal would be distracted by preparations to leave the city. Malik agreed it was a decent plan and sent the boy to sleep until the morning. 

Altair climbed down from his private bed (his ears ringing with the droning sound of their useless prattle) and followed Malik into their room. “If I can show you proof that Al Mualim is not as you believe him to be, will you spare this boy’s life?”

Malik rolled his eyes. “It is unlike you to care.”

“I do not care about the boy. It is Talal that I want. His life is mine to take.” Altair lifted a stack of bandages in the store room and pulled the papers he’d stolen the night before out from under them. He flattened them out as Malik lit a poor lamp in the room and once there was a flickering little yellow light to see by, Altair held the papers out. “Spare the boy, Malik. I know where Talal sleeps and could have him dead by the morning.”

There was a long pause—a stretched, quivering silence—as Malik read the papers from the first one to the third-and-last. The first nothing more than correspondence with a man named Tamir in Damascus. Talal spoke of their shared joys and trials. The second was a letter from a lover in another city that was well-worn in the creases. But the third was written in a hand-writing that even a man with Malik’s exceptional denial skills could not have mistaken. “This is an invitation to Masyaf,” Malik said when he looked up at him again. “You took this from Talal?”

“I did. It is addressed to him if you doubt me.”

“What business do you have with this man? You were not in Masyaf the dates on this paper and even if Al Mualim once sought to forge a friendship with the man, that does mean he did not discover his corruption and—”

“I _was_ in Masyaf. I was in a damp room in the dungeon, Malik. I was on my knees like a good bitch.” His fists were tightening up as the crawling came up from deep underneath his skin. The slanted-memories of short evening and long night spent in that room rising from the dark place where he kept them. “I was the entertainment your mentor invited this man to enjoy.”

Malik’s mouth opened (just slightly) as he looked at him. Every bit of him wished to deny the words and it showed on his face as the quick-flash-burn of anger that he was most famous for. He said, “Al Mualim would not—”

“But he did, Malik. He gave me to you. He gave me to them.”

“Them?”

“Four men. I was not told their names and they were very careful not use them. I saw Talal in the city and I followed him but I did not learn his name until two days ago.”

Malik looked at the paper again. There was a coil of disgust on his face when he read the words, a rigid sort of denial that would not bend but snap (and painfully) as he shook his head. “Even if this is true, you must have allowed it.”

Altair slapped him. He did not even mean to do it and did not realize he was going to until his hand was smarting from the impact. Malik fell sideways to the left and Altair caught him by the shirt front to spare him the humiliation of landing on his face. Altair was crouching, Malik was sitting with his head tipped almost all the way back to look up at him. “Your mentor delayed me from leaving for the duration of my fever. He asked me to wait for him in one of the underground cells where none of my brothers would find me. And when he finally came—long after the symptoms had started, long after I would have agreed to anything to satisfy the filthy needs of my body, he whispered in my ear how lonely I must be without a man. He told me that he had not planned for it to happen but there were men—loyal allies of our brotherhood—that had never had the personal joy.”

“You are not an assassin,” Malik said (aware, in that moment if never again, how useless his objection was). “This is not your mission. You are not interested in the good of anyone but your own need for vengeance. I cannot allow it.”

Altair was going to shake him, he was going to shake him until there was sense in his head and something reasonable and _malleable_ that could be made to see the truth. Malik’s hand closed around his wrist where he held his clothes. Altair let him go. “When the boy is dead, will you see reason?”

“When there is reason, I will see it.” He looked at the papers again, a flinch of conflict in his face, and then he shoved them back at Altair. “Go sleep in your own bed.”

“Yes, it must disgust you that your _wife_ was fucked by so many cocks before you.” He took the papers and left before Malik could offer an answer.

\--

In the morning, Dani woke and ate the meal that Malik offered him and set off to his death. Altair waited only long enough for Malik to look out toward the outer room and the slanting sun coming in through the open squares in the grate and then he jumped down from his bed. He took no weapons when he left the bureau and Malik watched him. 

“Do not interfere with the boy’s mission, Altair,” he called out to him.

\--

Altair trailed Dani through the city, watched him marching purposefully onward. The boy stopped only long enough to be sure all of his weapons were in the correct place and then he snuck his way in through the open door of Talal’s market. Inside where the wretched moaning men and women waited for their inevitable fate. Altair went to the roof, found the escape hatch and let himself in—slowly—and eased forward into the dusty interior. 

“Ah, an insult!” Talal was shouting from the ground floor. His arms were spread and there was a host of his men moving slowly outward from the walls where they’d been well hidden in the shadows. “I thought I could at least command the courtesy of a real threat. Al Mualim offends me with such a poor attempt on my life.” Then he put his hands together. “Ah, well. You have come, _at last_.”

Dani pulled his sword and held it bravely out in front of him. “I have,” he said, “and you shall die.”

Talal put his head back and laughed. His face a mockery of high color and amusement. His men were snickering to themselves as they closed in a circle around the poor fool. There were more on the platforms above him and one coming in from an interior door. The exits were covered, doors were slid shut and Dani’s bravado faltered. “You are mistaken. You were brought here by my invitation—did you not see the door I left open for you? And now you will die. Then Al Mualim will see I am not so easily disposed of.”

Dani opened his mouth to say something but half a dozen men attacked him at once. 

Altair clenched his hand around the rung of the ladder on his right side and bared his teeth at the helpless sounds of the fight. Talal was laughing to himself as he turned away from the sight of the boy being disarmed and shoved onto his knees. Altair picked up a pot and threw it across the room to smash into the head of one of the thugs. Then he got a running start and jumped off the higher platform he was standing on, jumped across two of the hanging lights and landed on the opposite side where he slammed into a man and took his sword. It was a simple matter to stab him in the gut and jump down. 

He killed three men before Talal’s hiss of shock broke through the fog of the fight. The man’s mouth was smiling but there was fear in his eyes when he said, “ah yes, now here is the respect I deserve.” Then he turned toward the ladder and scuttled up it like the coward he was. 

Altair pulled Dani back to his feet and the boy wilted back to his knees again. The remaining men shouted abuse as they moved to avenge their fallen fellows. Altair cursed at them, at Malik, at the useless child bleeding freely from a wound on his side just behind him but he rose his sword and smiled at them to come forward.

\--&\--

There were no bells to alert him. Malik passed the morning an in uneasy fit of misgiving. The papers that Altair had shown him the day before were stuffed in between the pages of his book. The useless love letter and the communication between the slave merchant and his black market friend he had simply tucked away again. It was the letter that Al Mualim had sent that he kept, the one that he laid out on the top of his counter and compared to the many slips of paper he had received from Masyaf. He took the paper with the target’s name and compared it to how it was written on the letter.

He stared at it for a very long time, caught in indecision. Al Mualim was the mentor of the assassin, the wisest of all of them. He had ruled them as long as Malik could remember and led with gentle but unwavering conviction in all this time. Malik’s father had sent him away to learn to be an assassin with one truth: that Al Mualim was an incorruptible good in the world. That the things he would be asked to do might seem unthinkable but they were necessary to ensure the good of all mankind. Malik believed it then, and still. It was the single most important pillar of his belief that his cause was _just_.

Then there was the letter spread out under his hand. There was Altair’s face and the tremor in his voice saying: “he gave me to you.” That was another matter entirely. Omegas went to men chosen by their families, primarily. A good man considered his child’s happiness when making a match but most omegas were married too young to know what made a good husband. 

But it would not leave him, the look on Altair’s face. The unsettled, unsteady, unevenness of his face that had never-once betrayed an emotion of such depth in all the years they had met one another. 

The letter was proof that Al Mualim knew Talal. It was proof that Talal had been (invited) to Masyaf. The aborted child was proof Altair had sex before he was married. It was only the look in Altair’s eyes to attest to the rest. 

\--

His indecision was interrupted by the sudden thump of a body landing hard against the stones in the outer room. And the quieter shush of Altair dropping from above. He was covered in blood all along his right side as he ducked down to lift up a carpet that did not belong to them. Underneath of it a groaning body unfolded, half-white and half-red. 

Malik went quickly and only just barely made it before Altair pulled a knife free from the assassin’s belt to bring a quick end to his suffering. The wound on his side was an open slash cut down and under the protective belt, the pink meat torn by effort and the slick membrane of muscle barely keeping the bulk of his insides contained. It was a fatal wound, and even if that one were not, the sucking wound in the boy’s chest surely was. “What happened?” Malik asked Dani. He put his body between Altair and his hand gently on Dani’s chest.

The boy told him, how he had gone. How it had been a trap. How he was attacked by so many men. He told him how Altair had come (from nowhere) and how Talal had said ‘at last the respect I deserve’. Dani said Altair had brought him here. 

“I didn’t want to die there,” Dani said.

Malik sat back on his knees. “Safety and peace, brother. May it be better where you are going.”

Then Altair stabbed the knife through his heart and the boy went with only the softest of sighing sounds. His face loosened in death and Malik reached up to pull his eyelids shut before he got to his feet. Altair was already there, throwing the bloody knife to the side. “What will you do now, Rafiq?”

“What would you do? Rush off to hunt for a man who has just killed one of our brothers?”

“Better than waiting for another man to tell me what to do. Better than acting as if I were nobler for doing nothing at all. You are the Rafiq, Malik. You are responsible for what happens in your city and this,” Altair motioned back at the boy, lax with death, “is what you have allowed to happen. I told you it would and you did not care. This death is yours to bear.”

Malik wanted to deny it. Death was the inevitable conclusion of every life. He had followed the orders he was given and he had prepared Dani as well as he was able. There was no reason to believe the boy was incapable of completing his mission based solely on how youthful he looked. (Altair had been a deadly force at the same age, defying all expectations.) No good came from arguing otherwise, Malik had sent the boy out on a mission and Altair had been proven right in the end. The target was still out in the world, undoubtedly preparing to leave the city as they spoke. “Where is Talal now?”

“Hiding like a coward,” Altair said. “Come with me and we will find him.”

Malik could not leave the bureau unattended. It was a solid, _reliable_ truth in the storm of ideas-and-thoughts and emotions that tried to overrule his head. He said, “find Nidal and bring him to me.”

Altair scowled at him. “This is why you should never have been an assassin.” But he went with all swiftness. The blood on his clothes undoubtedly drawing attention to him as he moved with the reckless speed of his emotion-fueled haste. If he returned at all, it would delayed by the fights he would inevitably find on his way to-and-from completing his task. The delay gave Malik time to breathe and _think_.

\--

Nidal came as if he had been forcibly removed from a much safer place. Altair was right at his back, crowding him forward and then climbing up to his perch without a moment’s pause. He picked up his sword from the pile of his weapons and jumped down again. 

“Talal is preparing to leave,” Nidal said before Malik could even ask. “Most of his men were slaughtered in his warehouse but the ones that remained disposed of what stock they had not already sent out of the city. One of my brothers said they saw Talal enter a Christian home but that he has not left yet.”

Altair was hovering in the doorway. Malik turned the map of the city around to face Nidal and the man pointed his finger to mark the home. “Close the bureau. Do not open it again until I return or you hear of our deaths.” He ducked low enough to pick up the sword he kept for himself and then motioned at Altair to move forward. 

\--

The few assignments that Malik had suffered through with Altair were boring affairs of hunting for men when they were both barely assassins, clumsy as novices and impressed by their own magnificent prowess. Altair was impatient and Malik was methodical and they made a poor match long before Altair simply stopped tolerating him. Back then, Altair was not as swift as he was now. His long body was not as heavily muscled. He was not driven by the relentless _need_ that moved him through the city without a moment’s pause. 

He was also not nearly as familiar with his surroundings. Weeks of living in this city had given Altair an advantage that weeks of living in the bureau had not afforded Malik. He followed and Altair took him on the most direct path. They crept up behind the informant that watched the house and Malik reached out to touch him gently as he said, “hello brother.”

“Talal is inside. There is a woman and two children in the home with him. There is a door and two windows and an exit on the roof.” 

Altair’s fist tightened around his sword reflexively. “We should enter from the roof. He is most likely nearest to that.”

“Are there any of his men with him?” Malik asked.

“Not that we saw, Rafiq.”

Malik huffed. “You go through the roof,” he said to Altair. “I will enter through the door. Wait for me before you strike.”

Altair was darting away, finding a path that took him to the roof of the home and Malik stood up and left his black robe with the crouching informant. He went across the street with the sword down and to the side. His heart was throbbing in his chest as he got closer to the door. It was an uncomfortable distraction, something that had not often happened to him before. He pushed open the door and saw the woman cringing in the front corner with her two children crying against her ribs. 

Across the room, Altair had pinned Talal to the floor with a sword through his stomach as his two hands pushed it down and the lean of his body put the full of his weight behind the blow. Talal’s hands were grabbing at the blade, his fingers slick with blood as they fought to free himself from the impaling force. 

“I said do not strike without me,” Malik said. 

Altair looked at him as if he did not understand the words and his two hands on the hilt of the sword started oh-so-slowly turning the blade in a half-motion to the right, tearing open the wound in the center of Talal’s stomach as the man screamed in pain. “He saw you coming,” Altair said when he stopped turning the blade. “He meant to use the child as a shield.”

Malik looked down at the man, his spit-slicked chin and the wide-eyed wild fear making his face go spotted. Talal’s eyes focused on him, his mouth (tight with pain) opening and shutting around words he could not say as his eyes closed and his breath came in a terrible coughing spatter. When his eyes opened again, his lips quirked up in an awful mockery of a smile. Malik said: “What is funny to you?”

“You would find it funny too, if you knew what I do.” 

Altair was twisting the sword again, dragging it downward as blood rose out of Talal’s gut in a great red wave, bubbling-hot and thick. Altair grabbed the man by the face and the pressure of his nails digging into the man’s skin left gouges just deep enough to bleed. 

“Yes,” Talal said to him. “I do remember you. I told the others—I told them you would find us. Do you remember? You must. 

“Tell me their names and I will grant you a quick death,” Altair said back to him.

“I do not need to tell you, assassin. Your master will send you to them soon enough. Have you not figured it out?” Talal said. His voice was a bubble of blood and pain. “Not yet, it seems.”

“Their names,” Altair said again. 

Malik smacked him in the shoulder with the flat of his blade. “Finish it or I will. We do not torture men in this manner, Altair. Regardless of their crimes. Allow his god to judge him.”

Talal made a wheezing sound, something like a laugh. “If there ever was a god, there is not one now. Finish me, I will tell you nothing.”

Altair pulled his sword free with a splatter of blood and straightened. “Suffer,” he said to Talal. “I will not give you the satisfaction.” 

The wound was fatal. There was no way Talal would survive. Altair’s satisfaction did not come from his death but from the pain he would experience and the slow drag of his life oozing out of him. It was the death this man deserved (perhaps) but it was not the death that Malik was willing to leave him to. “Altair,” he said.

Altair stopped in front of the door, turned back to look at him. 

“Kill him,” Malik said. “Not for his sake but your own. This is not a crime you deserve to carry.”

Altair considered it, crossed the room to set his sword on the table and picked the knife this woman must have been using to cut bread and bent low enough to roll Talal onto his stomach. The pained noise that the merchant made brought an awful smile to Altair’s face as he shoved Talal’s face into the floor and drove the knife up through the back of his skull. He stood up again, picked up his sword and looked at Malik. “Did you bring a feather?”

“I did not,” Malik admitted. “We must go.”


	14. Chapter 14

They returned to the bureau. Malik supervised the removal of Dani’s body and bent across his counter scrawling a detailed account of what had happened to send to his mentor. Altair cleaned his sword, his clothes and once Dani’s body and the many brothers had finally gone, his body. 

It was dark by then. The anger that had sustained him through the day was exhausted. Altair was tired and hungry. He thought fondly of the lost days of his earlier life when he could command his meal be provided for him. It was an enviable power to possess; far superior to the chore of preparing it for himself (and whoever occupied this building with him). He went to fix something to eat and by the time he’d produced a meal, Malik had abandoned his post at the counter and closed the bureau. He was sitting at the table (still stained from Falal’s blood) with leaning his cheek against his fist as he looked at the papers spread across the table.

Altair put the food down by his elbow and sat opposite him. 

“What you said, it is all true?” Malik said. He wasn’t looking at him, but at the invitation.

“Even you cannot call me a liar.”

Malik sighed, pulled the dish of food closer to him but did not look up from the paper. He must have decided to memorize it before looking away because he kept staring as his food grew cold. When he did look away (finally) he did not look at Altair. “You cannot kill these men,” Malik said. “I have given you the wrong impression by allowing you to kill Talal. You are not an assassin.”

It was not even a surprise. Malik was ruled primarily by morals and his morals were ruled primarily by the rules that had been repeated to them the whole of their lives. Assassins worked to free humanity from the tyranny of evil men but they could only do that in the stiffly regimented confines of their own society. The contradiction could have driven a sane man to raving madness. “I could be.”

“I won’t send you back to Masyaf,” Malik said. There was no condemnation in it. He was not bitter with anger, kept upright with dominance and denial but steady and _final_. No, this sound in Malik’s voice was far worse than victorious denial it was protective pity. “This,” he said with his hand over the paper, “proves that you should never have been allowed to stay.”

Altair sat back in his seat. “If I had only been given a husband, no harm would have come to me.”

Malik had the sense to look vaguely uncomfortable with the statement. But he believed it true, regardless. “This,” he repeated with his hand tapping on the paper, “would not have happened.”

“Then you shouldn’t have a moment’s pause in sending me back,” Altair said. “I have a husband and Al Mualim doesn’t have the power to give away what belongs solely to you now.” It wasn’t true. He did not even speak the words with enough vehemence to prove that he believed them.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” Malik said. Each word weighted with the unnamed thing that kept Malik from looking directly at him. 

“What a wonderful world you live in. Worse has happened, continues to happen, is happening in this city at this moment.”

Malik’s hand slapped the table, he looked at Altair then. The anger making his cheeks pink and his teeth grind together. He did not like having his noble ideal of the world challenged. “It should not have happened at _Masyaf_. Al Mualim allowed you to stay, he called you a brother and we do _not_ treat our brothers in this way.”

“Al Mualim has done nothing to me that you have not.”

There, at last, he found something that hurt him. Something that drove a knife through the inflating righteousness that was puffing out in Malik’s chest. All of his objections, all of his ire and his condemnation was suddenly deflated and he floundered for a reaction. He said, “I am your husband. I have taken nothing from you that is not my right and you have given your consent.”

“I have either given my consent or you have taken what is yours. Both cannot be true. If my body belongs to you, my consent is irrelevant. If I have given my consent, you have no right to me without it. We each believe what allows us to continue living in peace.”

“Is my name on a list of men whose lives you believe are yours to take?”

Altair let a huff of breath go out through his nose. He was _exhausted_. “Understand, _husband_ , that I do not want you any more than I wanted any man I was obliged to service. To be married to you is a humiliation. To obey your spiteful commands an insult. To look at you each morning a constant disappointment. All this, all the petty things you have ever said to me, and all of your intentional ignorance. All of this—and I do not wish you dead. You are a fair man. You are a righteous man. I do not even hate you, Malik though you have given me reason to.” He leaned forward enough to pick up the letter. “These men deserve the death that will come for them.”

For once, perhaps for the very first time ever, Malik said nothing at all. He looked at his food and Altair allowed him the reprieve. He cleared away his own dish and went his own individual bed—far away from the sound and touch and smell of any other—and listened to Malik shuffling away to his own.

\--

Altair slept because he could not have denied his body the pleasure of it. He woke up alone. The day already thick and hazy with heat pressing in from all sides. There was sound below him as Malik attended to the daily tasks of Rafiq. A brother had gotten lost on his way to Acre (very lost) and had been sent to the bureau by an informant within the city. Malik showed him a map (and perhaps taught him how to read it) and offered him food that was gladly received.

His presence went without notice as he rolled quietly to his side to watch the assassin looking at the book shelf and the table and the floor with great interest. He was an older man, clearly years past his prime, but not yet ready to give up the freedom of travelling. Malik served him food and returned to his counter. 

It was Malik, not their guest, that looked up at him with a raised eyebrow of acknowledgement. “Will you be staying?” he asked the assassin.

“Yes, a good night’s rest would make my travels much nicer. Thank you, Rafiq.”

Altair got to his feet and jumped down to the floor. He landed hard on his feet, let the jarring sensation travel up through his body and stretched out the many kinks and pains of having slept too long. Malik introduced him as his wife (always did) and Altair did not bother to address the assassin. 

“You cannot go out today,” Malik said to him (lowly). “The entire city is searching for you.” He expected a fight and Altair did not give one. 

\--

Talal was one of many and it was that knowledge (brought into the startled forefront of his mind) that disrupted his inner sense of peace. That knowledge that stirred the black space in the center of his gut and brought echoing licks of the _other_ things. Altair had learned how to smother them back into their place but it took time-and-patience and _motion_.

Trapped inside, he barely had the space to breathe. 

\--

The first day passed. Altair slept in his own bed while Malik left him to it without a protest. And the second, exactly the same.

\--

On the third day, when he was jumping back and forth across the planks over Malik’s head, the man looked up at him long enough to say, “stop!”

Altair gripped the edge of the wooden planks and slithered off the side of them, dangled from the edge and used his grip to go from one end to the other. Malik stood with his teeth bared and his hand in a fist, watching him do it. Altair pulled himself up, put his palms against the wood and held his body straight before dropping down and lifting himself up again.

Malik’s answer was to turn his back.

\--

Altair watched Nidal, Malik’s least favorite of all informants, bring in the supplies they needed. He was crouching with his back to the wall and his forearms braced against his thighs. Four days had restored his balance (but not his peace). 

“It is not safe,” Nidal said when Malik asked how things had changed. “I have not allowed my own wife out for fear that they might mistake her for a criminal. Time will ease the tension, there will be other crimes to divert the city’s attention.” He looked back when he spoke, up at Altair (only briefly) before looking back at Malik. “Have you received a reply from Al Mualim?”

“We are to keep watch over our city. When you hear any news of the war, bring it to me and I will send it along.” 

Nidal nodded his understand and left. 

“What did your mentor say about the method of Talal’s assassination?” Altair asked. 

Malik looked up at him (perhaps for the first time in hours, maybe days) and said, “he was pleased at my resourcefulness. He complimented me on my work in preventing the escape of a dangerous man. He asked if I had thought of allowing you to return to your work as an assassin.”

Altair curled his lip at the words. “What response did you give?”

“I said you were better suited to being my wife than an assassin.”

Altair snorted at the words. Malik looked down at his work. 

\--

By the end of the week, Altair had yet to share a bed with Malik, prepare him a meal or clean his bureau. He had done nothing but push his body to the point of exhaustion each day with a repetitions of simple exercises. 

The balance he had found days ago had given way to a blackening sense of dread and disgust that he could not scrub free of his body. He spent his time in the outer room, away from Malik and his half-glances. What time he did not spend in there he spent high above Malik’s head, searching for some sense of sanity and finding nothing.

\--

Night came and Malik went through the door as he had done since Altair had thrust the paper in his face. His black robe sweeping out behind him and his bitter commands silenced. Altair was _seething_ in an unanswered anger. His hands talon like around his own knees as he tried to unwind his body far enough to gain some sense of control over it. But the immediate feeling of _helplessness_ raged through his veins and his head like a great storm all lightning-and-rain-and-wind.

\--

Altair was scrubbing his skin clean (long after the moon was the last light in the sky) when Malik shuffled out of the back rooms—half dressed and half asleep—and stopped in the doorway of the outer room to blink at him. His face was a shadow of half-growth and his shoulders were sagging under the weight of poor sleep.

“Altair,” he said, “what are you doing?”

He was washing his arms, the back of his neck, his chest. He threw the rag into the water pooling in the base of the fountain and stood up. “Have you come to drag me to your bed, at last?”

Malik squinted at him. “No.”

“Then send me back to Masyaf!” Altair shouted at him (and had no idea he meant to say a thing before the words were there). “I cannot disgust you when you are not forced to share the same space with me.”

Malik took a step forward and Altair stood his ground with his hands as heavy as hammers at his side. Malik’s hand rose in the air in a show of harmlessness. “I will not send you back to Masyaf.”

“Then make use of me,” Altair said. “You had no problem doing so before and I have not changed. My body is still wet and warm and _yielding_ to yours.”

The space between them was too narrow and Altair moved toward Malik’s left, stepping sideways and back to increase the distance even as Malik said. “I am not disgusted.”

“Then use me,” Altair snapped. He took another step away even after Malik simply stopped moving toward him. “Prove your words! Prove them as you made me prove them. If I do not disgust you, you should have no issue in taking what is yours.”

Malik had never looked at him with such uselessness in all their lives. There was no fight in his eyes, no tension in his shoulders, and no ire in the slant of his mouth. He looked as if he were _in pain_ , indecisive and confused. “I am not disgusted with you.”

“Ha!” Altair shouted at him. “You should be. I begged them for their attention. I let them hold me down one-after-the-other as they filled me with their cocks and my stupid body wanted it, sighed and moaned for it. You should be disgusted.”

Malik took a slight step toward him and Altair took another away. “I am. I have spent days pulling back the layers of disgust that I feel. I have peeled this unwanted knowledge you have given me. I am _nauseous_ with disgust.” (The truth. At last.) “But it is not you that I am disgusted with.”

No-but-it- _had_ -to-be. 

\--&\--

Haydar had said to him: if kindness does not come naturally, try pity.

Malik had not spared a moment in all of his life to pity any man much less the one he had spent the greatest portion of his life trying to best. Altair represented every-single-thing that Malik detested in the world. His arrogance and his disregard for human life and his disdain for every man in their brotherhood. Pity was the very _last_ thing Malik thought to feel toward Altair.

\--

Malik-was-fifteen and Altair was fifteen when Altair attacked Abbas in the practice yard. The cause of the battle was long-whispered over but never confirmed, but the battle itself was seen by hundreds as eyes. Abbas had a short blade and Altair’s clothes had been torn away from his chest. His mouth was bleeding and there was a black-rage that seemed to be animating him as he threw Abbas to the ground and beat on his face until it was a swollen-red-and-pulpy. Rauf and three other men were needed to pull Altair off Abbas and even then he was kicking and fighting for his freedom, his bloody-red-mouth a garish smear that ran all the way down his neck. 

Abbas got to his feet and shouted (barely comprehensible through the swell of his cheeks and lips), “you foul bitch! You’ll get what’s coming to you! You foul bitch.”

Al Mualim was there in the next moment, silencing the whispers and the shouts. He looked at the mess, seemed to know without being told what had happened, and cupped his hand around Altair’s neck as the boy looked at him with such devotion and worry. Al Mualim pulled Altair after him with a gentle hand but called at Abbas harshly. 

At fifteen, Malik was angry on the behalf of a black-hearted, mean-spirited boy that he would grow to hate as a man. He whispered venom with the other boys, laid blame on Altair for being an _omega_ and nodded his head along when the others said: “omegas drive men to ruin.”

\--

But Haydar had said to him, ‘your life has not been without loss and indignities but they are light in comparison’.

Malik was bitter and angry (about the death of his brother, about Altair’s accomplishments, about his wife’s _begrudging_ compliance in their bed) when he heard the words. He thought them over like hard nuts between his teeth and spit the thoughts out again—bloody and useless. He convinced himself Haydar saw a cause for sympathy that did not exist. 

Altair’s greatest indignity was one of his own making. His actions led to his exile from the ranks of the brotherhood.

Malik convinced himself that his own wounds were greater. That his own loss of freedom was far more severe and cruel and that Altair’s meager complaints were the spoiled whines of a man used to extracting his will from those he thought beneath him. Even Al Mualim had favored and doted on Altair above all others. And Malik convinced himself it was long-needed _justice_ that made Altair his wife.

\--

Malik was a _child_ , in his father’s home when the idea of family grew from the seedling of knowledge he had. His father ruled his mother, commanded her with absolute right, and his mother obeyed and followed. She submitted and gave and was _happy_. Her neck was marred with teeth marks and her face was stretched in a smile. 

Her voice was a sweet song in his ear, the sound of a bird happy-and-sweet.

(But Malik was grown now, alone in a cold bed, staring at the blackness, trying to pick apart the memory of his mother to see if her smile faded.)

\--

But there was Altair with his arms pink from the effort of scrubbing them and his stone face crumbling apart as he shouted a denial at Malik’s words. A wordless, painful sound that wrenched itself out of somewhere in the center of Altair’s body. It seemed to pull every ounce of effort from him as he folded forward.

“You said to me that it is either your consent or my right that matters. You said they cannot both be true and that we each had to choose which allowed us to live in peace.” Malik could not name the fear he felt, could not force himself to look away from Altair as the growing fury mutated him back into stone. “I cannot live with lies, I cannot live with injustice, Altair. You called me a righteous man and it is not a title I deserve from you. I have used you, I have _delighted_ in knowing you have no desire for me and I have convinced myself that it was a fitting punishment for your part in my brother’s death. That I could only come to realize this in the face of the unforgivable acts those men committed disgusts me.”

Altair was standing again, fully upright and looking at him with a sneer of defensive derision. “How convenient that you discover morals that did not seem important when you were ordering me to suck your cock while you ate.”

Malik did not look away from him. “As convenient for me as it is for you to show restraint when it is too late to benefit anyone.”

Altair sighed. “What will you do with your morals? What good are they to me or to you?”

“Your consent matters,” Malik said. “I have no right to your body without it.”

Altair laughed then and it was so dark and so defeating that Malik felt foolish for even trying. Altair looked down at his feet, flexed his hands in useless fists and then looked back up at him. “You will die before I will come to you willingly,” he said.

“So be it.”

This did not satisfy Altair. “Send me back to Masyaf, Malik.”

“No.”

“Send me back.”

“No.”

“Because you are too moral to make use of me and too selfish to allow me to go? You are a liar, hiding your disgust and revulsion for what I’ve done behind noble ideas.” 

Malik could not win. He had never had the power to win against Altair. It should not have surprised him that he would fail in this as well. “I will never send you back to Masyaf, Altair. I would kill you myself before I would allow you back under the authority of a man who would sell one of my brothers.” There was nothing left to say, “go to your bed. You cannot heal if you do not rest.”

“I am not wounded,” Altair snapped at him. (Aware, even, at how desperate the lie truly was.)

\--

Alone, in his room, in the blackness of night, Malik stared at nothing and thought of his brother. At how small Kadar could make his body when he was frightened. At how he had snuck again and again into Malik’s house to lay at his side (wordlessly, without explanation) and how he would be gone-again before the morning. 

Malik thought (oh, but tried so hard not to) of how often his brother must have been scared and how often he must have been humiliated. He thought of how often he had dismissed it and ignored it and failed to see it. 

Malik thought of his brother with his nose in wrinkles saying, _why do you hate him_?

\--

In the morning, Altair threw a dish of food toward him from the opposite side of the counter. It spilled from the violent fall but was not completely wasted. The man himself looked somewhat recovered from the night before (looked as if he had slept at least) and stood with both of his hands on the counter as he said, “if you cannot send me to Masyaf, send me to Damascus so that I can find this man, Tamir.”

Malik anticipated this (many days ago, when it seemed most important to keep Altair from killing). He said, “regardless of what has happened and what I have learned, you are not an assassin and personal offenses do not give you the right to kill these men.”

“Al Mualim brought these men to Masyaf as a show of friendship and now he wishes them dead. You heard the slave merchant with your own ears, Malik. Your mentor is not the man you thought he was—you cannot deny that now—these men may hold the answers.” It was a perfectly valid conclusion to have but it was nothing more than a convenient wrapping to cover the truth of Altair’s quest for vengeance. 

“There is proof that Al Mualim is not the man I thought him to be, but there is not proof that he is a traitor. His abuse of you, while immoral and wrong, is not a great enough crime to commit treason against him.”

Altair frowned, pressed his hands flat to the surface of the counter and then said, “if I bring you proof that Al Mualim is corrupt, will you allow me to hunt these men?”

Malik sighed.

“Send birds to your brothers in Damascus and Acre, Malik. Al Mualim will have sent assassins to kill men in those cities. When he sends a name to you again, you will come with me as we hunt him and see the truth with your own eyes and hear it with your own ears so that you cannot deny it.” Altair’s expression dared him to deny it and Malik did not have the energy to try. He only inclined his head in agreement and Altair smiled in viciously-pleased victory.

“But if the man we hunt is not one of the men you think it is, you will see the truth with your own eyes.”

“Very well,” Altair agreed.


	15. Chapter 15

Altair left the bureau in the afternoon. Malik did not specifically say he could go but he did not specifically say he could not. He took the precaution in dressing in clothes that worked to diminish his physical size. The length of his shirt concealed a great deal of the supposedly _identifying_ nature of his walk. As soon as he was out in the streets, he stole a scarf from a merchant and wrapped it around his head to hide his face as best as he could. There were too many guards crowding the streets and too much attention being paid to the mundane daily activities of walking-and-sitting for Altair to stretch out the cramped muscles of his body with a healthy run. So he went south from the bureau, toward the tower that stood mostly ignored by the guards. 

It was an easy enough climb. He scratched his palms bloody in the attempt (thought again how he needed a pair of gloves) and sat on the viewpoint that allowed him to watch the city in motion beneath him. This far up it was impossible to make out individual conversations but it was easy enough to make out the tone. 

The whole city was afraid. If not because of the slaughter at the slave merchant’s warehouse than because of the rise in the number of guards. Jerusalem was a city on the verge of constant war, surrounded on all sides by opposing extremes. Altair had never stayed here long enough to have his own sense of individual peace and security robbed from him. But the madness was crushing in from all sides and he was low on the resolve to ignore it.

Malik had tasked him with the impossible. There would be no proof that Al Mualim had betrayed them. Perhaps he had not betrayed anyone. Perhaps he had only used Altair the way he thought was best for the sake of the brotherhood. No man would know it save for Al Mualim himself. Malik would not be moved to believe him so long as his useless pity persisted. Everything Altair said was now an echo of the half-knowledge Malik had of how he’d been (ab)used by his mentor. 

\--

In the evening, Altair returned to the bureau. Malik was tucking away his work for the day as Altair closed the grate. His husband stared at him with open confusion when Altair joined him in the interior room. Altair might have asked him what was so interesting about his face but Malik reached up to straighten the way the scarf hung around his face. 

“The streets are not safe,” Malik said.

“They are safe enough,” Altair countered. “I cannot find proof if I am hiding here.”

“Fine,” Malik said. “Do not kill yourself before you have given me the son I was promised.” He waved his hand in the air as he turned his back, unaware or unconcerned with the irony of the words. 

“Either you are stupider than I thought or you have discovered some other method of attaining sons than the ones I am familiar with,” Altair said. An afternoon of fresh air and freedom had left him feeling refreshed but the knowledge of his recent embarrassing weakness was still an unpleasant taste in his mouth. Malik’s unwanted assertions that he would not take what was his to take had done nothing to ease the crawl of things that moved under Altair’s skin. He didn’t need this man’s pity and he didn’t like it or the moral cover that it hid behind.

Malik said, “I haven’t changed my mind. As you will never give me a child, you will simply have to refrain from reckless behavior.” He pushed open the door that led to the private rooms and Altair followed him to hear the full of his words. Once inside the dim rooms, Malik stripped away the long robe and hung it up. There was a clear weight of exhaustion resting on him as he worked to remove his boots and belt. 

Altair hovered indecisively to the side, unsure if he wanted to argue the point further or just leave this awful little space. “Al Mualim said you agreed to this for the sake of a child. If that were true, you would not give up on the idea so easily.”

“If you have not gotten pregnant already, I will have to resign myself to a childless life. I do not like it but there are things that I like less.” He finished stripping away the outer layers of his clothes and rubbed at his sore shoulder above the blunted end of his left arm. The bandages did not have to be changed so often now that the wound had closed but it still obviously bothered him. “Are you going to make a meal?”

“I can only get pregnant during my fever,” Altair said, “are all men like you? So ignorant of these things?”

Malik sighed. “The many I’ve encountered are. Food?”

“Fine.” 

\--

But the trouble was that Altair was still _trapped_. Trapped by the farcical marriage to Malik; trapped by his own sex, trapped by the information that existed in _constant_ fluid motion between him-and-Malik. Trapped by knowing-and-not-knowing that Al Mualim had betrayed (him) them but not the extent of it. The feeling persisted even after he escaped the crowded confines of four-walls and a roof. It followed him through the streets of the city. It suffocated him in a crowd. It dogged at his back as he ducked his shoulders to make his body seem smaller and walked back-to-the-bureau. 

It nagged him in his solitary bed high off the ground. It robbed him of sleep and comfort.

\--

When Altair was fifteen, and still only half-aware of what _men_ wanted from him, Abbas had knocked him over in the practice yard when they should have been fighting. His breath was an unwanted heat creeping over Altair’s face as his hands worked up under his clothes. Altair-was-stupid-then, shoving at Abbas’ shoulders saying, “Stop it. I want to practice—Abbas!” 

At fifteen, Abbas was heavier-than-him with a greater wealth of natural muscle in his arms. His mouth was wet across Altair’s, slanting and pressing against his lips to silence the shout of his name. His tongue, slick and worm-like, lapped at Altair’s and the sensation of it brought a sharp focal point of _fear_ where there had only been confusion before. 

“Abbas,” Altair growled at him. He bit back at the mouth across his and Abbas grabbed his shirt and yanked him up off the ground to slap him across the face. “Brothers do not do this.” They had fought before (many times) but never with full vigor. They had been two-against-many for as long as Altair could remember. Except for this, as he rolled half on his side and Abbas made a grunting-pleased-noise and tried to shove him fully onto his belly. “Stop!” Altair shouted at him. He tried to pull himself out from under the man and Abbas tightened his grip on Altair’s clothes and pulled him back.

“But you aren’t a brother. Stop fighting me,” Abbas said. “It won’t hurt if you stop fighting me. Don’t I deserve it, huh? Don’t I? For all the things I’ve done for you? I have been so kind to you. Haven’t I protected you from the others?” His body was a heavy drape of intent across Altair’s back, his arm clamped tight around Altair’s ribs as he rubbed his stiff dick against the rise of Altair’s ass. “Stop fighting me,” he snarled again. 

For a half-breath, Altair went limp. The fight was a losing one. And Abbas took that stillness as agreement as he drove his hand under Altair’s clothes to look for the waistband of his pants. (And Altair thought, how terrible would it be to give in? To see for himself what all of the nonsense the other boys said was about. To let Abbas have whatever he thought he deserved.) But the hand that spread across his belly was greasy-with-sweat and Altair thrashed wildly to gain his freedom. Every moment of training he’d ever had forgotten in an instinctual spasm. He darted forward on his knees and hands to get on his feet and turned around to face Abbas—red with embarrassment but not shame—as he got to his feet. “Touch me again and I will castrate you,” Altair said.

Abbas laughed at him. “I’ve heard of omegas that had to be tamed but you, Altair, you are truly a rare one. This is what you are made for and nothing will change it. Now come, let me show you how to please a man.” He moved forward with his hands out and his fingers curled inward as if he meant to beckon him close enough to grab at. 

Altair broke his nose and Abbas cut open his face and they were screaming in a fight to the death when they were found (at last). But the worst of it was Abbas in front of Al Mualim saying, “he drove me to it. He is always looking at me and calling to me with the sway of his hips. He teases me with his bare skin and offers to train in the yard. How could any man stand such treatment?”

(Worse than that, far worse, was Al Mualim’s soured-expression of false-disdain as he looked down at Abbas like he was a filthy parasite. He said, “a good man would have no such difficulty, Abbas. Altair is your _brother_.” And the limitless gratitude and _relief_ that followed the words. Altair had never had a father that he loved, never had anyone that sided with him against an accusation laid at his feet save for his mentor and Altair would have done _anything_ in the world to please him.)

\--

Altair walked in the streets of the city for days and found nothing to ease the feeling of being trapped against his will. He climbed the tower and he worked his body to exhaustion and he found no respite in the motions. 

He stood to the side of a moving crowd and watched the guards catch an omega—a boy, like him—and slap his face and call him a thief. They hit him and they shook him and they assured him he would pay dearly for his crime while the boy (too old to be considered a child any longer but not old enough to be married) protested his innocence and begged for his freedom. Altair watched without feeling _anything_. There was no anger. There was no obligation to assist. He was not sorry for the boy. He was not enraged at the guards for daring to paw at the omega as if they owned him. 

Even in the absence of feeling, Altair could not bring himself to walk away and leave the omega to his fate. He stepped forward into the flow of the crowd, grabbed a short knife out of passing man’s belt and tested the weight of it in his hand as he slipped in and out of the flow of bodies and up to the front-facing guard with the uncomfortable look on his face. 

“Move,” Altair said to him.

The guard looked sideways at the others who shared his uniform but obviously not his morals and he took a step to the side. His fellow guard that was looking out for vigilantes that did not approve of having their fellow citizens terrorized shouted an alarm. Altair slit his throat and took his sword. The battle was brief, boring, and unsatisfying. The omega stared at him with open-wonder. “I will tell my father what you’ve done.”

Altair made a rude noise. “Go,” he said. And the boy went gratefully. When he looked up from the fresh corpses he’d made, the guard who had stepped out of his way was gone and dozens of horrified citizens were shouting protest. “You would allow this?” he shouted at them. “You let them do whatever they wish and hide your eyes! Cowards.” He dropped the sword and marched forward as the startled, frightened crowd opened around him. 

\--

“Malik,” Altair said after the feeling would not give no matter what he did. His heart was beating and his body was deadened to every sensation. He was splattered with the blood of the men that he’d killed, men that he had barely acknowledged. Regardless of what his husband thought of him, regardless of what any man thought of him, Altair did not delight in the murder of men. He killed those that were in his way and those that he was sent to kill and he did not dwell on it. There were no nightmares (of that sort) that plagued him but he was not without his own momentary guilt. The guards were the first men he had ever killed that he felt nothing about. Not hatred, not revulsion, not satisfaction of ridding the world of evil but a great void of _nothing_. It was a dangerous feeling when it extended to every living thing around him. He could have cut a bloody path back to the bureau and arrived feeling no worse for the bodies he’d left like a trail behind him.

“Yes?” Malik asked. He was bent over his maps, ignoring the state that Altair returned in with all of his concentration. There were empty plates on the table across the room to indicate someone had come and gone again. 

“You have never shied from telling me what you think of me before. I need that honesty now.”

Malik looked up at him (at last) with a tightening worry overlapped almost immediately but an angry sigh at the blood he saw on Altair’s clothes. “What man have you killed now, Altair?”

“If I asked you to fuck me, would you be able do it?”

“I am working,” Malik said (still angry, distracted by the unknown man Altair killed). “Perhaps later.”

“Malik,” Altair said again.

“What?” Malik demanded. He put down the quill he’d been working with. “Why are you tormenting me with this? Is it not enough that I admitted I was wrong? Is it not enough for you to know that I am sick with it? That I left my brother in the care of a man who would do this to your kind? I will not take from you what you do not want to give—that is all I can do, Altair. I cannot allow you to kill those men, I cannot make you an assassin again—”

“I do not care about these things,” Altair said (but he did not even believe himself now). “If I asked you to—”

“Why does this matter to you? You do not want me.”

“So you could not.”

“I could,” Malik snapped at him. “I have desired your body since I was old enough to know what desire was. I would have no problem fulfilling your demands.” He said that like a _defeat_.

“Then do it,” Altair said. And he felt nothing at all at the words. Not a chill, not a sigh of obligation, and not even the familiar tug of shame that had followed him since he was seventeen years old. 

But Malik looked at him with his face draining of color and his hand resting useless and loose across the countertop. That look of pain was in his face so pronounced and acute that it was nearly an audible noise in the room. He said, “I have spoken to the novices that buried my brother today, Altair. I intend to visit his grave.”

\--&\--

Haydar had given him the name of three boys: Amin, Rasil and Uthal. “These are the ones who know where your brother lies, Malik.”

Time had not changed the grief that Malik felt for the loss of his brother. The recent (unwanted) crisis had distracted him but it had not diminished the feeling. The evidence in the quickening of his pulse and the difficulty he had in maintaining a professional face when the three novice-boys had stopped at the bureau in the morning. 

“Hello Rafiq,” they had each said in turn. Then the shortest of them all—a darker boy than the others—had inclined his head and said, “I am Amin and these are my brothers, Rasil and Uthal. We are nearing the end of our journeys. We can only stay a moment before we continue but the Rafiq in Damascus told us to give you this,” he handed a letter to Malik, “and we wished to tell you where we made your brother’s grave.”

“Thank you,” was the best Malik could manage. He looked at the folded letter in his hand and then cleared his throat. “I cannot leave the bureau now. If you tell me, or show me on a map I would be grateful.”

One of the boys in the back was looking sideways and up, at the hanging edge of one of Altair’s many stolen carpets that made his bed on the planks. He made a strange expression and then looked back at Malik as if he were working out how he managed to climb. The other slapped him on the arm and the two of them spent some time frowning at one another and jabbing their elbows at the other’s ribs. 

Amin turned far enough to glance at them and they stopped immediately. “Could we have something to eat before we leave again, Rafiq? The road back to Masyaf is long and we hope to travel it with as few stops as possible.”

“Of course,” Malik said. He pulled out the map of Jerusalem and the surrounding area and left it out for Amin to look at as he went back to fetch them some food. By the time he finished bringing it out, Amin and Rasil were already sitting with their plates across the room. Uthal was left standing by the map. 

“Kadar is here, Rafiq,” he said. His finger marked the spot and Malik picked up his quill, dipped it in the ink and made a spot to remember. Then Uthal thanked him for the food and hovered there for a moment longer. “I knew your brother well, Rafiq. He was a good man, like you. He often spoke of how he wanted to be as great an assassin as you were.”

“Thank you,” Malik said. 

The novices left when they finished eating and Malik stayed, staring at the map that now bore the location of his brother’s grave.

\--

There was nothing Malik could do for Altair. This had become increasingly evident as the days passed and the unstable anger-and-apathy worsened. Even leaving the bureau had not eased Altair’s anxiety (as it seemed to always be able to do before). 

“Go then,” was what Altair said to him when Malik spoke of his brother’s grave. The dismissal and the disinterest evident in his voice. He turned away from him and climbed back to his perch, sat there with his weapons and his blank stare but said nothing further.

\--

The journey to his brother’s grave was not a difficult one. Malik made it easily, going through the streets with little notice and crossing the distance without exhausting himself. He found the place not so far removed from the awful place of Kadar’s death. There was no marker to indicate it, just the slight mounding of earth that time had not yet flattened. The thick new growth of green across it made it a bright spot. 

Malik sat by it, crossed his legs in front of himself and reached forward to put his hand on the dirt. There was nothing there to make it different than any of the rocky soil around it. Nothing remarkable at all save for the fact that somewhere deep beneath it, his brother’s body was slowly-rotting in place. “I miss you, brother.” And when this provoked no response (why would it, why should anyone care at all about how Kadar had gone and Malik remained), he closed his eyes and said, “and I am lost.”

Haydar had named him a man of absolutes. He had said that Malik would do well, here in this city, where so many lost faith. But there was no absolute to find in his own home, at the bureau, where Altair wavered from one extreme to the other. Two short weeks ago, Malik would have viewed it with contempt, the wavering-instability of any omega. They were notorious for their fickle emotions that changed with the direction of the wind blowing; just one of many reasons that a man (capable of reason at all times) was necessary to keep them from harm. A week ago, he might even have been inclined to ask if Altair had always suffered such mood swings and what he had done to contain them before. 

Now. Now Malik knew things he would rather not. Now, he had the sense memory of Altair’s body against his and the dour expression on his face as he accepted-but-did-not-want Malik’s attention set tight against the knowledge that Altair had been (raped). It was a violently chilling thought that haunted him in his bed when he tried to sleep. Now, he was a villain in his own home; something comparable to those men who took what they wanted from Altair without a concern for his own wishes. 

He could not find _right_ in the storm of things he could not keep himself from thinking. Even here, at his brother’s grave, he was consumed by the things he did not know and could not settle for himself. There was no proof of Al Mualim’s treachery save for Altair’s word and the laugh of a dying man assuring them there was more to find. 

Out here, far from Altair, he pulled the letter from Damascus out of his pocket and unfolded it. (Out here, far from anyone to see, he forced himself to read the answer to the question he had not meant to ask.)

\--

Malik climbed the ladder after the sky was black and knocked at the grate until Altair—obviously unable to sleep again—came to answer him. He washed his face of the dirt of slow travel and took a few grateful mouthfuls of water before he stood. “Tamir is dead,” he said. “Al Mualim sent an assassin to dispatch him before we killed Talal.” 

“It should have been me that killed him,” Altair said.

Malik went in toward the counter and Altair followed behind him. “He said something curious as he was dying. The assassin said he spoke of being one piece of a larger whole. These men that came to Masyaf, you knew nothing of them?”

“No.”

It was the answer he did not want to hear. The letter from Damascus had worsened the doubt, not relieved it. The news of Tamir’s death followed along what Altair had predicted and it lent a certain credence to his words that had seemed irrational before. If Al Mualim had dealings with these men—with these pieces of a larger whole—that were so important he would betray his favorite to earn their favor, why would he order them killed only a few short months later? 

“I know nothing of the men he sold me to at seventeen either,” Altair said. 

“What?” Malik looked at him, directly at his face—searching for some hint of irony, some exaggeration of truth—and found nothing but blunt fact. “How often has this happened?”

“Only twice,” Altair said softly. “Two men the first time, four the second. Calm down, Malik. I agreed to the arrangement the first time, weeks before the fever came. He made me an assassin after. He showered me with praise, he favored me above all others. He promised me it would only ever be the once. He assured me of the grave importance of it. He told me that as an assassin I would be required to do many things I found distasteful but each of us—every brother in our order—owed absolute obedience to our creed. Five months ago he gave me to four men he now wants dead, four months ago he stripped me of my rank and gave me to _you_ because I am an omega. It was not a burden for me to be an omega when he whispered his filth in my ears about how much his friends would enjoy spending my fever with me. I do not know what else Al Mualim has done, Malik but I know he is capable of anything. I know there is nothing _just_ or _righteous_ about him.”

“There is no proof,” Malik said. Because there was _not_. There was only the feeling of it, the certainty that it had to exist somewhere. Feelings were inconstant, changeable things. Malik would not be ruled by them but they were _relentless_ nonetheless. 

Altair scoffed. “Give it time, Malik. He will reveal himself to you as well.” Then he tugged at his own clothes and licked his lips and said (as if they were not talking about how freely he’d been used before), “my fever is coming soon. If you are able, I will stay here with you. If you do not think you can make yourself fuck me, I will leave until it is over.”

“I will be able,” Malik said, “if you are willing.”

And there, again, that laugh that dismissed him as ridiculous.


	16. Chapter 16

The generally held-belief that omegas were irrational, moody and untrustworthy was based entirely (as far as Altair was able to discern) on the more extreme symptoms of an oncoming fever. Humans liked to think of themselves as highly-evolved creatures capable of profound intelligence but Altair had watched enough wild creatures in the throes of mating season to know that humans were no better. Omegas (during the few days before and the actual course of their fever) were not irrational but driven by a deep-set biological imperative that neatly disregarded their own wants. They were not moody without cause, but battling the impulse to accept the attention of any worthy male that crossed their path. (In that singular instance, higher thinking was a burden and not a source of comfort. Because Altair could think how very much he detested the idea of letting a man paw at him until he was exhausted from the effort but his body _craved_ it with an intensity that bordered on pain.) 

Most importantly, omegas were not untrustworthy at all. Men were easy to use when they caught the scent of an omega that was ready to be mated. Altair had seen how they fell to it, watched as men—self-proclaimed keepers of logic and reason—they fought each other for the right to breed. Omegas were never so powerful as they were in that short stretch of time between the first brushes of bitter heat set between their thighs and the onset of the disastrous _need_. Those moments were fully lucid and the feeling of power that came with them was immeasurable. Those few omegas who dared to risk their own lives to demand gifts and favor in exchange for the privilege of fucking them had soured men against the whole sex.

Altair could see the appeal in it. He had stolen Rauf’s sword from him using that power. But he had still been a child then, unaware of the fate he was tempting with his foolishness. He was too old now, too well educated, to see any point in risking his own life for the sake of material things. This is what he told himself as he hid on his perch and watched the steady flush of red rising up Malik’s neck. 

\--

Before the desire for sex, there was the uncomfortable stretch of time when his body felt too small to contain him. He was restless in the bureau, moving from one place to another and back again.

“Does it hurt?” Malik asked. He had given up the pretense of working on his maps for the day. In place of an occupation he sat on a stool behind the counter with his robe off and his face lightly coated in sweat.

“No,” Altair said. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to be around Malik either. He didn’t want his pity. He didn’t want to _want_ him. It had been a stupid impulse to stay here, to give his implicit consent when he wanted nothing to do with the man. (But he did, he wanted to know if Malik were as capable as he said. If his disgust was made of what he said it was.) The thought drove him up, higher, to safer ground. 

“Is it always like this?” Malik asked. “I have never seen an omega behave this way before. Is it different for your kind?”

Altair drew air in through his wet teeth and repressed the impulse to throw something at Malik. “I do not know what it is like for others, Malik. I have not spent much time around other omegas.”

“For you?”

“No, it is not always like this. This fever was late. Pregnancy affects them, this happened the last time as well.” It must have been the memory that drove him to this madness. He pulled his shirt off and dropped it over the pile of his weapons. He stretched his legs out in front of him and then crossed them again. 

“How many times have you been pregnant?”

“Twice. Easily bred each time. I’m surprised Al Mualim did not mention it to you when he was selling my worth as a wife,” Altair said. “But then you would not have wanted me if you knew I came to you so well worn in.” He rubbed his hands through his damp hair and tipped his head back against the wall behind him. It would not be long now and there was comfort in the idea of primal impulse taking over where his own wavering resolve ended.

Malik was quiet for a moment. “Have you ever had sex with someone you wanted?”

Altair laughed at that idea. “I am an omega. I have sex with whom I am given. I am to feel grateful for the honor.” Then he pulled his boots off and crouched on the carpets where he slept. He looked down at Malik (now decidedly pink in the cheeks). “Do you feel it now? I could get anything I wanted from you.”

“You could not,” Malik said back. “I have wanted you since we were children, Altair. I am long used to the feeling by now. But yes, I feel it. It is why I locked the bureau.”

“You said that before,” Altair said. 

“It is true.”

“You hate me.”

Malik inclined his head. “I do care for who you are but I greatly desire your body. If only you were a better person, I would have tried to marry you just for the right. As you are not, I have managed to avoid this fate until now.”

“Ha,” Altair said softly. “There is no question why Al Mualim thought this a fitting enough punishment then, is there? He trusted me to obey you and you to hate me and neither of us to ever suspect him.” Then he was on his feet and jumping down. He went to rub water through his slick-wet hair and drink until the thirst in his throat abated.

\--

It was late afternoon before Altair couldn’t stand it any longer. He strode across the room, pulled Malik up off his stool by the front of his clothes and dragged him back into their private rooms. It was simplest to undress Malik rather than wait for him to manage it himself. Malik made it difficult by touching Altair, brushing his fingers across the sensitized surface of his nipple, cupping a hand around his heated-waist and then sliding back to wiggle fingers into his pants and pull at his ass. Altair hissed but-wanted-to-moan. Malik’s fingers dipped down into the slickness and his groan was so deep and rumbling that Altair could barely think.

“Don’t bite me,” Altair said to him. 

Malik nodded and Altair shoved him down onto the bed. He took his own pants off and dropped down to kneel across Malik’s lap. His cock was hard (perhaps harder than it had ever been before) and it slid into him wet-and-deep. Altair moaned then, could not resist another moment, as he greedily enjoyed the sensation. 

Malik was _touching_ him again, stroking his thigh and his belly. He was reaching up to pinch at his nipple and using the strength of Altair’s body as an anchor to pull himself up to sitting. Then his mouth was licking-and-sucking at Altair’s neck and his collarbone. Malik’s hand rested against his thigh as Altair lifted-and-dropped. He was _soaking_ wet, slipping so slickly against Malik that the embarrassing squelching sound was nearly enough to break through the mindless desire for more of the same. 

And he was angry at being restricted, angry at Malik for being too close to him, angry that he had to be the one that moved his body. He pushed Malik back and sneered back at the objecting noise his husband made at him. Malik went, laid out flat beneath him, hips lifting up to meet his. They slapped together without rhythm, each of them working toward the sole goal of keeping Malik’s cock as deep inside of him as could be managed. Altair closed his eyes and tipped his head back, moaned as Malik’s body rose up to meet his. The hand that had been across his thigh lifted away and wrapped around his cock and the sensation was too-fucking-strong to bear. He grabbed Malik’s wrist to pull him off but Malik was already pulling at his useless dick as he fucked up into him and the combination burst outward in a great-seizing wetness.

“Ow,” Malik gasped under him. Altair barely heard it, was consumed with the unknown thing as his body bowed forward. He was aware (somewhat) that his hand had tightened around Malik’s wrist and his fingernails were digging into flesh but it was unimportant in comparison.

“What did you do?” Altair demanded. He moved to lift up but Malik grabbed him by the thigh and dragged him back into place. “Haven’t you finished?”

“I have,” Malik gasped back. “You’re too tight, stay a minute.”

Altair stayed because Malik was still hard inside of him and it was a much-welcome-sensation at the moment. His body felt inconstant in the aftermath. “What did you do?” he said again.

“I—” Malik started. He clearly did not understand what he had done or the question. “It is always like that for me.”

If that was the case, there was no wonder men couldn’t accomplish anything when the possibility of beating themselves into an orgasm existed. Altair shifted on his knees and Malik’s dick inside of him shifted. He was rocking back against the insistent heat-and-hardness of it in the next minute as Malik grabbed onto his thigh again as the only handhold in the world. “Don’t do it again.”

\--

But it was worse, in a way, to know what pleasure his body was capable of. It was worse to be there with Malik whose name-and-body he knew so well. The other men had been faceless, abstract things that he could hate with ease even while they shoved him face-down in the dirt and made use of him. Altair had known the whole time he would never see the men again and did not worry over what they must think of him.

It was worse, with Malik. 

\--

“Let me,” Malik said after the fourth (or fifth) time. Altair was lying on his back and Malik was over him with his cock buried deep and his hand pushing against Altair’s slick chest as he moved. Malik had no trouble in achieving spectacular orgasms but Altair’s insistence against his own seemed to trouble him. Malik was close again, it was evident in the greedy thrust of his hips and the hoarseness of his groans. 

Altair’s body was _aching_ with unfulfilled want, as if starved of some vital need. He had his legs around Malik and his hands pulling at Malik’s hips. He was fucked-open and still-unsatisfied. There was nothing to distract him without a brace of other bodies all around him. There was nobody to pull on his hair and whisper foul things into his ears. 

“Altair,” Malik moaned. 

“No,” Altair said. But he didn’t mean it. That sensation of tightening urgency was reaching a fever point of _need_. Malik bent forward across his body, smeared their combined sweat together as he put his elbow flat to the ground and sucked at Altair’s neck. The space between them was too narrow. Altair’s dick rubbed up against Malik’s body and he tightened his knees hard around Malik as he fucked up against his gut while Malik fucked him. When he came it was _overwhelming_ and he turned his head and dug his teeth into Malik’s shoulder hard enough to draw blood. 

Malik howled in outrage and tried to get his freedom but Altair held on with his arms and legs and teeth. “Altair!” his husband shouted at him. He hit him in the head with his fist but the angle was poor and there was no strength in it. “Altair!”

Altair let him go, watched him struggle back up to his own knees, felt how hard he still was as he pulled half out but scooted forward to drive back down into him. Altair let out a soft grunt at the sharpness of the move. He was _pleased_ at least, to see the ring of his teeth marks on Malik’s left shoulder. Altair rubbed his fingers across the wound, smeared the blood and spit in with the sweat on Malik’s body. 

His poor husband was indecisive with anger, offended at being bitten like an omega, and still rocking down into the heat of Altair’s welcoming body. “Do not bite me,” Malik said (far too late).

“Do not come so close,” Altair said back. The taste of blood was thick in his mouth and the satisfaction of the mark was a strange counterpoint to the useless need building back up inside of him. The half-moves of Malik’s hips against his were not satisfying in the wake of the intensity of that orgasm. Altair wrapped his legs around Malik and pulled him forward so he was fully inside of him. “Is this what you wanted? All the times you took me before? Is this what you wanted?”

“Yes,” Malik said. There was no shame in it and Altair bared his teeth at the word.

“How will your morals hold when we are through? How long do you think you can maintain the charade before you can resist no longer?” He reached up to touch the wound he left again but Malik slapped his hand away. 

Malik fucked into him _hard_ and Altair’s eyes fluttered closed. He moaned and Malik did it again, just as hard.

\--&\--

They slept, after a time, and Malik woke up with Altair curved against his body and his eager hand pulling him forward. Altair was still _wet_ , still _tight_ when Malik pushed into him. It was unthinkable in the aftermath of the continuous sex of the night before. The low sigh of pleasure that Altair barely expressed was equally impressive.

Malik was tired and his body was sore from exertion and yet he could not control the impulse. He put his arm around Altair and pulled him back against his body as he rolled his hips in a lazy rhythm and enjoyed the fantastic nearness. 

Altair tipped his head back, mouth open and body quivering in a sweat. 

It was easy to see why he had spent half his life in delirious desire for this awful person. The tightness of every part of his body, the slimness of muscle and the wet-pinkness of his distracting lips. Altair was a work of art, a magnificent specimen of mankind and any man would have given anything to be where Malik was. That thought (unwanted as it was) drove a spike of possessive anger through him that made his lazy rhythm falter. He fucked forward harder on the next thrust and Altair grunted at the sudden change. 

“Malik,” Altair said. He shoved his arm downward. “Do it.”

And he grasped Altair’s thin cock and stroked it while he fucked into him with as much force as he could on his side. When Altair reached his peak, the whole of his body shivered and he clenched down _tight_ and Malik had to grit his teeth to keep from cursing at the near pain of it. 

\--

Moments later, when Altair’s body finally loosened up, he pulled away and got to his feet. His body was filthy from sweat, his thighs streaked from the combination of their orgasms as he stepped across Malik and dug around their clothes for some of the bloodstained things he could not wear. He scrubbed at his thighs.

“Is it over then?” Malik asked. He could easily have slept several more hours.

“No,” Altair said. “Not completely.” But he left the room carrying his pants with no indication that he planned to return. Malik watched him go, looked at his own pile of discarded clothing, and thought about getting up to follow him. Exhaustion kept him where he was.

\--

Altair was hiding on his perch when Malik woke enough to get dressed and leave the room. The air wasn’t as thick with sweat and sex out in the front of the bureau. But stepping through the door was very much like walking directly into a fog of desire. He had intended on attempting to make up the work he missed the day before and yet the only pressing thought he could muster was how far away his wife was. 

“How much longer?” Malik asked (instead of demanding and begging and then finally trying to climb up and capture Altair). 

“Maybe the rest of the day,” Altair said. “Do you mean it? That you are disgusted with yourself and the men who took me before? That you do not find me repulsive?”

Oh-hell, Malik would have said anything he thought he had to say in order to get Altair close enough to him to touch. His mouth was watering for want of him even as his dick filled again with a protesting kind of red pain. “You are not a man who took advantage of someone who trusted him,” Malik said (as evenly as he could). 

“Why did you allow me to kill Talal?” Altair was sitting on the edge of the perch now, his long legs hanging down as he watched Malik. “Answer me,” he said when Malik did not immediately satisfy his curiosity.

“He needed to die. He was a target and it was expedient.”

“And why can I not kill the other men?”

“Because it will not stop with the other men,” Malik said. He pressed the edge of his wrist against the sharp corner of the counter. “If you allow yourself down this path, if you insist on it, you will never be able to stop. Men like Talal and Tamir are the only men that you will find on this path. We are assassins, Altair. We serve the greater good of humanity and there is no greater good in your bloodlust.”

Altair cocked his head to one side. “I am not an assassin, Malik.”

“Come closer,” Malik said because it seemed worthy to say. 

Altair did not move. He kicked his feet idly a moment longer and then said, “would you kill them for me?”

Malik looked up at him. It was too-hard to think around anything but the desire for Altair. The fog in the room would have driven any man to madness (and wasn’t that what he had always been told about omegas). He took in a breath through his mouth. “I would not and you are far worse a man than even I estimated if you would try to manipulate me to do so.” 

“I am not a man,” Altair said softly. “I would not make you kill against your own morals, Malik. I only need to know the truth.” He jumped down and stepped out of his pants as he walked toward him.

“You did not believe the many times I have said the same before?”

Altair was close enough to touch, his skin still hot to the touch and the smell of his body a delicious-taste in Malik’s mouth. His hand smoothed across the bite he’d left on Malik’s shoulder when he said, “No. Lesser men bend and change to get what they want. Haydar said you were immovable, Malik. I did not believe him before.”

Malik was pulling at Altair’s leg, trying to get them apart far enough to get between them. Altair leaned back against the counter with his hands folded around the edge as he lifted his legs up to wrap around him. “Haydar said I should pity you; he was a fool.”

“No,” Altair said as Malik sank back into his body. “Haydar was not a fool. He was a foul pig.”

“What?” Malik asked. But Altair was leaning back, his heels digging into Malik’s back to urge him on and nothing seemed important in comparison.

\--

The fever (as Altair called it) came to a sudden halt in the early afternoon. Altair simultaneously seemed to wilt from exhaustion and go stony with restored indifference. His body—so recently pleasingly pliant—returned to a stiffened, proper posture even as his wrinkled his nose in distaste at himself and the various aches in his body. There were enough marks on his chest and neck to make him bare his teeth in anger but none of them permanent to make him bother to reproach Malik for his efforts.

“Now it is done,” Altair said. He washed and dressed and disappeared in the interior rooms without another word. 

Malik washed (not as thoroughly) and dressed and opened the bureau. He was not expecting any assassins to come see him but there was always the chance one would wander by. The interior room still smelled of sex and it was still decidedly difficult to put the notion of sex out of his brain when he’d so recently had Altair across his countertop. The smudged surface of an unfinished map a testament to where his long body had been. 

\--

When Altair returned (a few hours later) he looked surly with incomplete sleep. He offered Malik a dish of food and set his own on the counter. The shirt he wore covered most of the marks but there were a few above his collar that showed like temporary claims of ownership. Malik-may-have-been a terrible man for it but he was pleased-as-anything when he saw them. 

“You said Haydar was a foul pig,” Malik said. “He told me before he left that you looked at him as if you would kill him if he did not outrank you.”

Altair’s smile was not a comfort. “I suppose we are all animals in a way. He was aware of me and I was aware of him as a mouse is aware of a hawk.”

“Haydar was a rapist,” Malik said. Altair didn’t like the word. He looked at Malik with contempt but not acknowledgment. “He knew what had happened to you because he had done it to someone.”

“It seems. I did not tell him and I do not think even Al Mualim would have made a point of advertising the information.”

“He said to me that the sins of youth grow heavy as you age.” Malik had thought it was some non-specific warning, perhaps a caution against petty anger and spite. (A worthwhile attempt to chastise him and warn him away from unnecessary harm. One that Malik had blithely rebuffed.) 

Altair made an agreeing sound. “Whatever sins Haydar carried, they broke his body with their weight. You have no such sins, Malik. If my consent matters as you said it does, then you will not bother yourself with guilt. I chose to give you what you wanted. And you have been worthless since you have allowed yourself to doubt this.”

“You have not been worth much either,” Malik retorted.

Altair regarded the food he had made and yawned. “Not as worthless as you.” 

Malik allowed him the victory (as he had almost always given victory to him) and Altair accepted it without the customary jab of derision. They ate and Altair went back into the private rooms. After Malik closed the bureau he went in to the rooms and found Altair sleeping in their bed, his back to the wall and the sword under his lax hand. 

\--

The next day, Altair hovered indecisively between the counter and the open grate of the bureau. He had completed his meager attempts at cleaning, made food for Malik and cared for his weapons already. There should have been nothing to give him a moment’s pause. 

Malik looked up from the new correspondence he had gotten from Masyaf. A long list of mundane tasks and a few men that needed to be tailed for information. There was no indication of any impending crisis, no personal letters from Al Mualim for him to dissect for secret meaning. “What?” Malik asked.

“Dates,” Altair said (as if it meant something). He looked almost instantly as if he did not want to explain the statement. “I cannot stand the smell of them when I am pregnant. That is how I know.”

“Is that even possible?” Malik asked. “After—” 

“It must be.” Then he left Malik with that uncertain information. Altair pulled himself to freedom with the long end of the scarf dangling from where he wrapped it around his fist. The bureau was suddenly too still and empty.


	17. Chapter 17

When he left the bureau, Altair had intended to walk through the city. It was vast and there were many corners and turns to lose himself to. Many places he had not yet investigated for some clue as to Talal and Tamir’s connection and purpose. But he found himself climbing to the roof across from the bureau and ducking into the humid little rooftop garden. The floor was hard and the curtains smelled faintly of murky water and old dirt. He dozed but didn’t sleep. His hand closed and there was no sword there to comfort him and it drove him back to full wakefulness. It was a fruitless, unhappy cycle and yet he could not motivate himself up and out. 

\--

In the afternoon, he managed to shake the heaviness of exhaustion and went to the market to look at what the merchants were selling. As an assassin he had never bothered to look at the offerings beyond their immediate use. Altair would rather cut off his own arm than think of himself as someone’s wife (and what a husband-and-wife they’d been if he did) but the dull monotony of living in the same place left him feeling gray and lost. The impossible goal of finding proof of Al Mualim’s treachery seemed too immense to even begin. (What would the old man to say to him if he’d gone to him whining over how he did not even know how to begin? His old face in a placating grin and his weathered hand on Altair’s shoulder as they ducked their heads together. His voice saying, every task you are given can be accomplished, you need only take the first step.)

Finding Talal had been an accident and learning of Tamir an act of fate. He knew little of the other men save for the smell of their bodies and the feeling of their hands and cocks all over him. The room had been dark and they had been so careful in their jeers and jests to never use names. The first two men he remembered in detail but the quality of his memory had degraded in all the years since.

If Altair were ever capable of guessing what Al Mualim must have been thinking, he had lost the ability in the resulting awareness of the man’s betrayal. There seemed to be no logic in the actions, to give Altair to men that he would then kill. To allow Altair to stay, to encourage and shelter him and then to dismiss him when offered an excuse.

Oh-and-hadn’t he made it easy for Al Mualim to find an excuse? He might as well just have walked up to the castle and declared war on Masyaf. At least if he had offered so direct an excuse, Malik would still have an arm and Kadar would still be alive to wither away under the weight of his half-life.

The market was a busy buzz of people around him while he looked blankly at pottery and carpets. Merchants with wares and goods to sell were calling loud and constant over the din of noise. Wives and servants were searching here-and-there for the things they’d been sent to buy and a dozen hagglers were arguing the cost. 

Altair had always detested the mundane duties of daily life. He had delighted in the advancement of rank that gave him the right to order idiot novices to handle all his daily needs. He had relied heavily on the barren women that stayed at the castle and never cared-or-wondered how they felt about it.

“Something pretty for you?” the merchant asked. He had an assortment of pretty things in his stall and he offered one to him with that glint in his eye that betrayed how helpless and easily distracted he thought Altair to be. 

“No,” Altair said. 

He went back to the bureau, fed Malik his meal and slept in his own bed with his hand resting across his sword.

\--

“It’s you,” a boy said as he came to a dead stop in front of a woman balancing a heavy pot on top of her head. His clothes marked him as a young omega, probably soon to be wed to a man (he looked nearly the right age for it). There was something vaguely familiar about his face but Altair could not swear he had ever had any dealings with the boy. But the old man who sat on the bench next to him woke out of his dreary afternoon stupor and focused his eyes on the boy and then on Altair. 

Altair got up and pushed the boy back out of his way. “I do not know you,” he said. He moved into the crowd that was moving away from the market and back toward the many homes in the district. He heard but did not see the boy scuffling after him. There was a sharp cry of alarm and Altair turned around to reach a hand up and steady the heavy pot the woman was balancing. The boy was ducking as low as he could manage, defensively making himself smaller to ward off punishment. 

The woman thanked him but kicked at the boy. Altair grabbed the idiot by the arm and dragged him out of the crowd and into the poor shade of a scrubby tree. 

“You saved me from the guards,” the boy said. “I have told everyone I know about you.”

“Stop.”

“I owe you my life. I do not even know your name.”

Altair scoffed. “You do not owe me your life. The worst they might have done was—” He did not finish the sentence, this omega boy was just looking at him with the same half-knowledge that had crippled Altair in his youth. There was no reason to take the boy’s blessed ignorance. 

“Could you teach me what you know?” the omega asked. “My father says that I should not go out by myself. He says that it is not safe for me and that I should always travel with my Mother or my sisters. He says that he will find a husband for me that will keep me safe. I do not want to rely on a man to be safe,” he said. 

“I cannot teach _you_ ,” Altair said.

“I can learn,” the boy said defensively. “And there are others. Women and omegas that you have saved. We have seen what you have done for our kind and for the old scholars. There have been whispers that you fight for us. You do not have to teach us all that you know—just something, something so that we can defend ourselves for when you are not there.”

The idea was impossible. Altair was not fit to teach anyone anything. He did not have the temperament for it. And yet, the omega was looking at him with such longing-and-hope. The long-long grip of his fingers reaching out to pull at Altair’s arm as if he could shake him into agreement. “I will think about it,” he said at last.

This didn’t exactly please the boy but he was content to let him go. “I am Aaron. I will meet you here again tomorrow. I cannot pay you but there must be something we could offer in exchange?”

Altair snorted and left before the boy could embarrass himself any further.

\--

The bureau went stagnant with arrival of many new letters. Altair did not read Malik’s mail. He did not concern himself with the work of a Rafiq and the many pointless tasks he had to accomplish. It had not interested Altair when he was an assassin and now that he was no longer in the ranks, it was even less appealing. 

He left food for Malik to eat and went out to the outer room to work through his daily drills. By the time he had worked up a healthy sweat, the shuffle of feet drew his attention toward Malik standing in the doorway. “You look angry,” Altair said as he lifted himself up toward the grate. “All the times I have seen you watching me, even when we were young. You have always looked angry.”

“I have been angry,” Malik said. “Angry that you must show off. Angry that you are capable of such endurance. Angry that our instructors praised you. Angry that I could not match you. Angry that I could not force myself away from desiring you.” He leaned against the doorframe and watched Altair finish the set of pull-ups with a lazy sort of appreciation. And when Altair was standing on the ground again, he said, “you once told me you could not sleep when you were in danger. Was it a danger only I posed or general danger?”

“I thought I knew you,” Altair said. “And the man I thought you were would not have found it such a difficult task to set aside the law and take what he wanted. Yours was the loudest of voices, the one that spoke the longest and most often about me. Will you ever settle your conscience on this matter? It is done now.”

“My mother was happy with my father,” Malik said. “He was the leader of my house, she followed his commands without protest and she wore the marks that he put on her with pride. She sang in the mornings and the afternoons and never spoke a word against him. The many wives I have seen have been at ease with their places in their homes. It is only you that hates the life you were born to. And when I try to make sense of it, and the things you have told me, it is not my own guilt that will not settle but my understanding of the world.”

“Omegas are powerless, Malik. Some of them are happy to be. Some of them are happy despite it. Some of them aren’t happy but they fake it because the alternative is misery. I was born to be an assassin. I was raised to be an assassin. I have spent my life proving myself as one. In the end, I was still powerless.” He hated being powerless. He hated being reminded of it. He hated dwelling on it. 

Malik made a low humming sound in his throat and turned back toward the inner room. “Thank you for my meal,” he said before he was fully turned away from him. He was gone before Altair could work around the disbelief he felt at the words enough to try to come up with a response.

\--

That night he could not sleep. He paced the bureau, straightened the shelves, rearranged the rugs in the outer room, listened to the city settle peacefully in the dark and then found himself standing at Malik’s counter looking at the maps he had been working on. There was one of Jerusalem that was pitifully out of date. Altair had climbed enough of the towers of the city to be certain the map had not been updated in years (if ever). 

It was almost morning before Malik came out of the inner rooms—looking angry at being awake—and found him fixing the incorrect placement of buildings. “What are you doing?”

“This map is wrong.”

“I did not realize you were an authority,” Malik said. He came over and frowned at his messy lines and his crude attempts to add the new buildings and update the dimensions of others. Altair’s artistic talents did not lay in technical drawings but his own attempt was still more accurate than the original. “How did you come by this superior knowledge?”

“I have seen the city from its highest points,” he said.

“That must be why you never have skin on your palms. If you insist on climbing, you could trouble yourself to take a pair of gloves.” Malik tugged the map out from under him when Altair leaned his weight away from it. There were ink blots on his sleeves and a black smear all over his fingers. Malik looked at what he’d done with a studious frown. “Perhaps next time you can tell me what is not accurate so I can fix it correctly.”

“I did not realize you were an authority on mapmaking,” Altair said back.

“Clearly you do not know much about me.” Malik put the top back on the ink and looked out toward the darkness of the lingering night. He let out a huff of breath. “You have not been asleep yet?”

“No.”

For a moment, Malik looked indecisive and it was a terrible look for him. Then he looked right at Altair and said, “I would like you to come back to our bed. I will not ask anything of you.”

It would have been an easy victory to deny Malik. Their original arrangement had ceased to make sense in the face of his husband’s elongated moral crisis. Altair did not feel that he owed anything to Malik (except for his food, and perhaps not even that if he did not feel like it). It was a nice sensation to consider telling him no and knowing there was nothing Malik could (or _would_ ) do about it. It was _freeing_ to think of. But he nodded and then went to get his sword.

Malik slept deep and easy and Altair laid at his side and let the cadence of Malik’s breath put him to sleep as well.

\--

Aaron was waiting for him, exactly where he said that he would be. His defensive smallness doing little to dissuade the interest of those moving around him. The idiot boy was an unmarried omega out by himself in an area full of busy traffic. It was a wonder the little fool hadn’t met a terrible fate while he waited. Altair dropped down off a roof and landed next to him, ignored the way he screamed in fright, and raised an eyebrow at him (and his assertion that he could be taught). 

“I will train you, and the others,” Altair said. “In exchange you will listen to the crowds and tell me anything you hear that seems strange. Anything about people disappearing, about assassins in the city, about Templars.”

“You have my word,” Aaron said.

Altair nodded and sent the boy to find the others, expecting one or two and did not know what to do when he returned with a dozen. They were all omegas and women, some of them married and some of them not. All of them were slight and thin and bared-teeth-with-bloody-intent. “I will not go easy on you,” he said.

“You think anyone has?” one of the women asked. 

“Very well,” Altair said. He divided them in groups, assigned each of them days and times and places to meet him and explained what he required in return for his services. They all agreed and went on their way with a few simple exercises to help them prepare.

\--&\--

The first letter had been from Acre, the Rafiq that had offered the most sincere congratulations on his fortune at marrying so well. (The man, as far as Malik could divine from letters, seemed to think highly of Altair and even higher of any man who could bed him.) It had been a short missive, offering brief news of the city.

Al Mualim had set them on the task of trailing and gathering information on Garnier—a nasty sort of man who tortured his victims under the guise of healing them—and would be sending an assassin as soon as he was able. The curious bit, near the tail end of the letter, was the knowledge that his man, Garnier, took his victims from other cities and brought them to Acre to be ‘saved’. Clearly an effort to avoid suspicion. 

_Perhaps_ , the letter said, _the slave-merchant that recently met his fate in Jerusalem was responsible for sending a fresh stock of miserable men to Garnier_.

\--

But the second had been from Al Mualim, ordering him to set his own men on the task of gathering information on Majd Addin.

“He is the regent,” Nidal said when Malik gave him the information. “No task we are given is without danger but to trail the regent is—”

Malik nodded that he understood the inherent danger. If Majd Addin—a man with great power—was truly corrupt, he would be difficult to gather information on. Worse, even, was the knowledge that if he wished, he could have any man put to death for whatever crime he chose. “You know this city better than any other, Nidal,” Malik said. “I have faith that you can do what is asked of you.”

“And if I cannot?” Nidal asked.

“You can,” Malik said. He wondered if there was enough confidence in his voice to make the words seem true. He wondered if his doubt showed or if he had found a way to hide it well enough. He felt it _constantly_ as he moved around the bureau. He felt it as he read the words of his mentor and tried to find some hidden evil in them. “Report everything to me.”

Nidal nodded his head. “Of course, Rafiq.”

“Safety and peace,” Malik said to his retreating back.

\--

The third letter had come from Damascus, lamenting the lack of competent assassins. It implied the best assassins had left the ranks either by injury or death. What remained were the second-best, and in some cases, the third-best. 

\--

There, again, the Rafiq of Acre sent him another message. It was full of the evil of the man, Garnier. 

_This man turns my stomach,_ the letter said, _to think of what evil he commits in the name of healing. At how he promises something he deprives these men and women of. I can only hope Al Mualim will send his best and quickest. This man’s death will restore a peace to me that the knowledge of him as stolen._

\--

Malik woke up in the middle of the night and found Altair ‘fixing’ his maps. While his intent was admirable his execution was sloppy. They stood on opposite sides of the counter trading comments with the ease that was no longer theirs to experience. It was familiar to insult him and just as familiar to have Altair brushing away his remarks without even taking a moment to consider them. 

Then there was silence. Then there was the many things that had changed between them. There was knowing how Altair felt beneath him, what he sounded-like when his body clenched down tight on Malik’s. More than that—so much more—was knowing that Altair did not suffer doubt but was _sure_ (even without proof) that they were serving an unjust master. Malik could not believe such a thing without proof, but he could take comfort in the knowing his doubt was safe with Altair. To know that what robbed him of rest also deprived Altair.

“I would like you to come back to our bed. I will not ask anything of you.”

He expected to be denied and from the half-seen look on Altair’s face, the man clearly thought about denying him. But he nodded his head and retrieved his sword.

\--

The fourth letter was another from Al Mualim, longer than the one from Acre, but full of the same disgust for the man that was a target. 

_It is a task fit for a Master Assassin,_ Al Mualim wrote to him, _but there are none still among our ranks._

Malik stared at it while he tried to work out a response. He stared at it while he worked through the way he _felt_. (Oh-and-he hated emotions, hated the fluid and changeable nature of them.) He stared at it and wondered how much more time would pass before Al Mualim took back what he’d given away in haste. (And what he would do if such a time came that he was told-not-asked to send Altair back to Masyaf.) 

Nidal interrupted him before he came up with an answer. He dropped into the bureau almost noiselessly and came forward on quick-quiet feet. “We have located Majd Addin and are making progress mapping his movements and finding those that are closest to him. We have not found any that would give information but there must be someone and we will find them.”

He shuffled the letter from Al Mualim under a stack of other papers and turned his full attention to Nidal. “You are doing well then, to have accomplished so much in such short days.”

From the unimpressed tilt of Nidal’s eyebrows he felt the compliment was ill-deserved. “I have noticed something else about the city. I thought it would interest you to know.” Malik motioned for him to continue. “Violence is common in the streets, the guards are quick to strike at the weak and to make examples of anyone. I have seen them harass scholars and women frequently and at length.”

“That is not news,” Malik said.

“The people have been complacent in the face of these abuses. They often walk past without taking notice. If they attempt to get justice or take vengeance on those that have hurt their family, they have been unsuccessful. Sometimes, they are executed publically. Yet, there have been many reports of the defenseless members of our city fighting back. I witnessed a young omega boy fighting off a guard who accused him of stealing. His methods were— _familiar_.”

Malik looked out toward the grate as if he could see-or-hear some truth of the matter from within these walls. It was not hard to figure out the hidden meaning in Nidal’s words. He clearly meant to imply that Altair—the most arrogant of men—had taken it upon himself to teach the miserable and weak how to defend themselves. “Was the boy successful?”

“He managed to escape. His flight was helped by the sudden arrival of a surge of angry men that shouted back at the guards for their treatment of the boy. I have seen this many times, these vigilantes that mean to take control of their city back from the hands of the corrupt. It is the first sign of hope I have seen in Jerusalem since I first came to this city.”

Malik nodded. “Thank you for sharing this information with me.” 

Nidal inclined his head and excused himself.

\--

In the evening, Altair came home with dirt caked in his clothes and a pink bruise at the corner of his mouth. He was at obvious ease. The sort of peace that came to him only after he had exhausted his body through physical means. Malik watched him until Altair became aware of his attention and narrowed his eyes in confusion.

“What?” Altair asked.

“I am going to see my brother’s grave.”

“Now?” Altair asked. He looked out toward the fading light of day. Then back at him. “It would be safer if you waited until—”

“I am going now,” Malik said. “Close the bureau and do not open it until I return. Can you manage to follow these directions?” Altair was offended but he nodded his head and followed Malik out to the outer room and closed the grate behind him. 

\--

Kadar’s grave was exactly as he had left it before. A barely noticeable mounding of dirt covered in grass. Malik sat by it in the dark. He put his hand against the dirt and tried to imagine what Kadar would look like if he sat in front of him. It was not so long ago now that his brother had been alive and still Malik could not form a whole picture of him in his mind. He could not force his thoughts to settle long enough to piece together the details of his brother’s living face. 

“Omegas lead men astray,” Malik said to the dirt. “This is what I have been told. Omegas drive men to madness, they twist around their thoughts until men fall to ruin. I came to Jerusalem sure of my purpose. I came here knowing I was serving the brotherhood and that my cause was just. I came knowing that my Mentor was a righteous man and that he sought to make the world a better place.” He rubbed his hand through his hair and wondered what good speaking to a dead man would do. It felt ridiculous and yet _necessary_ to say these things. To let them be free of the suffocating space in his chest where they had mutated and burnt in all these long days. “Now I am unsure. Now I cannot know the truth of the man I serve. I cannot know if I am moved to doubt because there is _proof_ or if it is because I am weak against—”

The words themselves seemed too great a betrayal to utter. Yet another grievance to lay at Altair’s feet, to be heaped in place with the others. There may not be evidence that Al Mualim was corrupt but there was enough to be sure that what had happened to Altair was true. To accuse him of using falsehoods (of that nature) to turn Malik against his mentor seemed to be the same sort of insult as using Altair’s for his own pleasure when he knew the man did not enjoy it. Perhaps worse. Perhaps it was the same as laying the blame entirely on Altair when it was not his.

“I was happier when I could hate him. It was easier,” Malik said. Because that, at least, was the truth.


	18. Chapter 18

Some mornings, when Altair woke up to the (almost familiar) sound of Malik’s even breathing he thought about asking the man what comfort he found in having a potential enemy so close to his back. Altair felt crowded by the closeness. Every time he tried to find a way to form the words into something without accusation, he failed and so the question persisted (unanswered).

\--

Aaron was quick on his feet, slipping in-and-out of crowds with rapidly improving skill. He had been identified as an omega when he was still a child—only eight—and has been raised accordingly. He wasn’t at ease with elbowing his way through and he didn’t like the idea of pushing those people who were in his way. So he slid like a snake in-and-out through the gaps in the crowd and fell into easy pace in the center of groups. He was good (better than the others), _nearly_ good enough for Altair to lose track of him. 

But he could not climb with any ease and he was clumsy with a weapon in his hand. His bony elbows were his greatest asset and Altair had bruises all over his ribs from teaching the boy how best to use them. Altair sat on the rooftop with his legs crossed in front of him as Aaron found a stack of things to climb up and pulled himself up onto the roof after six-or-seven failed attempts. The boy flopped on his back next to Altair with his face covered in sweat and his thin chest heaving for breath. 

“Was it so difficult for you?” Aaron asked. He, like many others, found comfort in sharing the effort of experience. His own worth measured up against others to know what pride or shame he should feel.

“I began much younger than you,” Altair said. 

Oh and Aaron smiled into the sun with his arm over his eyes and a quick breath of exhaustion passing out of his red mouth. There was clearly something worrying at him. Altair thought about leaving before they could fall into an attempt to have a conversation, and had not made a decision before Aaron said, “my father has found me a husband.”

Ah.

“Are you married?”

“Yes,” Altair said.

“What is it like?” Aaron moved his arm to look up at him. His face oblivious in his youth and innocence. He shifted so the sun wasn’t in his face and sat up next to him with the whole of his body turned toward Altair. “My Mother told me that I had to please my husband and that he would know what I should do. I’m not entirely stupid, I’ve had the… _wanting_ ,” the fevers, “since I was nine. Does it hurt? Is it strange to have someone—stick themselves in you?”

Altair might have happily lived the whole of his life without ever having to explain sex to anyone again. It was bad enough to explain it to Malik who at least understood the basic mechanics but to try to put the experience into words that would settle this boy’s worry left him with a sour frown. “It may hurt at first but your body is made for it. I do not remember if it was strange once. It is common to me now.”

Aaron frowned. Then he looked out toward the crowd. “I have heard nothing about the things you asked me to listen for. I will keep listening and practicing.”

“Good,” Altair said. 

Aaron smiled at him with such open admiration that it was uncomfortable to look back into his face. Altair had barely managed to teach the boy anything and had done nothing to earn such devotion and yet it persisted. 

“Go,” Altair said.

Aaron nodded and scampered down off the roof.

\--

Some mornings, Malik woke with a grimace caught on his face and his hand reaching down between his legs to palm at his erection. Some half-dream still caught at the edges of his consciousness or simple physical need. Altair had watched enough people to know the ones that thrived on touch. 

Malik liked to be touched; this he had always known. (It was at least half the reason he’d ever agreed to have sex with him. Touching pacified Malik’s anger.) But it was not the reason he asked Altair to sleep in his bed with him because Malik did not touch him in his sleep. The few times they had bumped into one another, Altair had pulled farther away and Malik had woken up enough to frown at him over it. He didn’t ask Altair to stay in his bed to watch him attend to his body’s selfish demands either because Malik was pink-with-embarrassment to be caught with a hand on his own body when he opened his eyes and found Altair there.

“Do you imagine I’m not aware that you do this?” Altair asked him. It was early for waking and he was still _tired_. He could not sleep when Malik did not sleep and did not want to be awake yet. The idea of leaving their warm bed aggravated him. “Do it then so we can sleep again.”

Whatever Malik’s reservations, they did not stop him from wiggling free from his covers and bringing himself to an easy, quick and apparently satisfying orgasm. In the aftermath he lay there with his hand damp from his own semen and his eyes closed. “You never feel desire?”

Altair groaned at the stupid question. “No.”

Malik let out a sad little noise and put his clothes right again.

\--

Nidal was the only informant that Altair knew by name. On days he had no appointment to keep and nobody to train he took up following the man as he went about his day. It was only an accident that he found himself standing in front of Nidal’s pretty wife just moments after the man himself left. She was younger than Malik, a sweet-faced thing with brown eyes and a hesitant smile. There were faded marks on her neck and a round-faced child clinging to her skirt as she came to a sudden halt in front of him. “Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

It had been Altair that dropped from the sky and got in her way. But he was as big as any man, easily confused at first glance. She moved with instinct, to duck her head and hope he wouldn’t be offended but she looked down at his body and then back up at the scarf he wore around his head (an attempt to disguise himself). Her expression changed when she realized she was addressing an equal. She didn’t look away from his face. “I know you,” she said to him, “you are the one my husband speaks about. The one that makes it too dangerous for me to leave my home.”

“Is that what he says?”

The wife nodded. “He respects you. I have heard him speaking to the others. I have heard him speak of your _husband_ , that is a man he has little good to say about.” (Well wasn’t that a nice change of pace.) “But that was many weeks ago and now he says little of your husband and much of you and the change you bring to our city. I did not expect you to be so tall.”

“Few do,” Altair said. He turned around to leave, since there was nothing to say to her, and she caught him by the sleeve. “What?”

“Remember my husband defended you when nobody else would,” she said. “It is a favor you should return if the need ever arises.”

Altair was tempted to scoff at the notion and did not. He nodded his head and left without a delay.

\--

It was not fresh news (not from the newest of letters that seemed to anger Malik more every time he unfurled them) but old news when Malik let out a sigh and rubbed his forehead with his ink-stained fingers. He said: “Majd Addin is the newest target in Jerusalem.”

Altair was cleaning the weapons from the store room at the time, listening to the light drizzle of rain falling in the outer room. He only looked up when he thought he could hear whatever Malik’s thoughts on the matter was. (He thought of just weeks ago when this sort of anger in Malik’s voice could be easily dealt with by provoking him and allowing him use of Altair’s body. In absence of that easy solution he was left trying to figure out another way to address it.) “What have your informants found out about him?”

“He is a cruel, mean-spirited man who kills indiscriminately and delights in abusing the power he holds. He is the regent. When the weather is better, go find him and tell me if he is one of the men.” Malik balled up the most recent letter in his hand and threw it on the floor. 

“What will you do if he is?” Altair asked. 

Malik didn’t look at him but out at the rain in the other room. His answer was clear on his face before he even found the words to admit it. He said, “I don’t know,” like he had never been forced to admit such a thing before in his life. “First we have to get what information there is to get and then we will make a decision.”

“We don’t make a choice,” Altair said. “ _You_ make a choice.”

Oh there was the anger on Malik’s face that was useful instead of wasteful. The fury that made his cheeks pink and his teeth show. “You would have us commit treason against the brotherhood and you still believe you are not responsible for the choices that we make? You are an arrogant ass, Altair but you are far from an ignorant man. What are you doing with your days if you are not searching for the proof that our mentor has turned against us?”

“He is not our mentor,” Altair interrupted, “I am not an—”

“I know,” Malik snapped at him. Then he stewed on it, the open anger on his face festering until he managed to distract himself into something long enough to calm himself again.

\--

There was little trouble in finding Majd Addin. Altair did not even have to see his face to know that he did not number among the men. He had the sound of their voices burnt into his ears much like the smell of their bodies and the unfortunate taste of their skins. Still, he made sure to look at Majd Addin’s face. 

Long after Majd had moved on and taken his crowd of followers with him, Altair remained listening to the chatter of the city and working out how a man like Majd Addin fit in with a greater whole. Clearly, he had not been significant enough to the greater whole for Al Mualim to invite him to partake of ‘unique entertainment’. Perhaps he was not a part of any plot. Perhaps he was only an evil man that Al Mualim wanted dead.

(Perhaps, using Altair had been only what Al Mualim said it was: a useful tool in much the same way any weapon was.) 

\--&\--

The letter came from Acre.

_There is regretful news to share this day. The young assassin our mentor sent to assassinate Garnier was killed in the attempt today. I assisted in laying him to rest myself and though I have seen a great deal of needless death in my life I could not help but weeping for the boy. He was too young and too inexperienced. This is the brotherhood we have now. Your and your wife’s absence was sorely felt this day. There is no wishing that things might be different but only finding the resolve to continue on. But it is difficult today when I have buried a child that I sent to his death only yesterday._

Malik was alone in the bureau when he read the letter. He often kept them until he was alone as he did not trust his face not to betray him and Altair always noticed everything. He clenched his hand into a tight fist and forced himself to read the letter again. (Forced himself to think of the boy Dani who had died in the attempt to kill Talal.) Not for the first time, he thought how strange it was for Al Mualim to send the youngest assassins he could find when there were still many more proficient that could be spared. Malik had been one of many; easily replaced by other men who had become assassins in the same year as him. Altair was the youngest Master Assassin (ever) but there were others capable of attaining the same rank. Their brotherhood was not crippled without the two of them.

There was no reason to send boys when there were men.

(Oh, but-there-was a _reason_.)

\--

Now that Malik knew of what Altair was doing in the city beyond the walls of the bureau, he could not help but see the evidence at all times. The bruises on his chest when he was changing his clothes were round-spots from a hard elbow. His ease and good humor (as much good humor as Altair’s stone face allowed) were clearly evident of renewed purpose and physical exhaustion. His color had returned, he had found a sense of peace that had been sorely lacking in the time they had been in Jerusalem. 

Malik thought of asking him how the training was going. He thought of asking who his favorite of his novices was, and if any of them stood a chance against the enemy they were fighting. But Malik had the knowledge of Altair’s actions from someone else (not the man himself) so he did not ask. It was not worth risking Altair’s increasing health. The man needed (deserved) to recover from what these past months had done to him. 

\--

Al Mualim sent him a short note that said:

_I have received word from Acre that Garnier has fled the city. He is headed toward Jerusalem where he will find favor with Majd Addin. It is imperative we find him as soon as he enters the city._

Yes, _imperative_ but _why_? Because Garnier was an evil that needed to be removed from his world before he could commit more disastrous atrocities on innocent people or because Garnier carried in his skull a secret that Al Mualim would happily kill to protect. Malik grit his teeth against the war of things in his head and did a poor job of keeping his face neutral. Altair was watching him from where he sat cleaning the extra weapons. 

Malik sighed, rubbed his forehead and tried to even his voice when he said, “Majd Addin is our new target.” It was not a lie but the information he had agreed to give (later than he’d promised). From the tilt of Altair’s eyebrow he was aware that it was not the most recent information he received.

“What have your informants found out about him?”

“He is a cruel, mean-spirited man who kills indiscriminately and delights in abusing the power he holds. He is the regent. When the weather is better, go find him and tell me if he is one of the men.” Malik balled up the most recent letter in his hand and threw it on the floor like the trash that it was. The drizzle of rain in the other room intensified his feeling of unhappiness until it seemed to be a crushing weight. This miserable city was his _home_ , this miserable bureau was his _reward_ and Altair’s misery was meant to be an _honor_ for his success.

“What will you do if he is?” Altair asked. 

Al Mualim had either over-estimated Altair’s resolve to be reinstated as an Assassin or he underestimated Malik’s resolve to keep him from it. Perhaps he assumed that they would kill one another in a rage. He could not possibly have thought Altair would tell Malik the _truth_ because if he had considered that possibility he should not have considered Malik such a poor threat. Or, they could be searching for information that did not exist. Al Mualim could be the man that he had been the last time Malik was in Masyaf, their righteous leader who wanted the best for all of mankind and all of the assassins who served him. Malik said: “I don’t know,” because he _didn’t_. “First we have to get what information there is to get and then we will make a decision.”

“We don’t make a choice,” Altair said. “ _You_ make a choice.”

There again this man’s insistence on abiding by the imagined ranks they held. Malik was not superior to Altair in any way. He hadn’t _ever_ been. “You would have us commit treason against the brotherhood and you still believe you are not responsible for the choices that we make? You are an arrogant ass, Altair but you are far from an ignorant man. What are you doing with your days if you are not searching for the proof that our mentor has turned against us?”

“He is not our mentor,” Altair interrupted, “I am not an—”

“I know,” Malik snapped. But he wanted to tell Altair they were both liars. They were both fools trying to pretend that Altair was not still an assassin. He was as much one today as he had been six months ago as he had been six years ago as he had been every day of his life. Altair could dress-like, act-like, talk-like, pretend-like he was a man’s wife until the day he died and it would not change the fact that he was _still_ an assassin.

\--

Nidal came to tell him of Majd Addin’s movements. “I am afraid, Rafiq,” Nidal said to him. “There are many eyes in the city and many mouths that speak into Majd Addin’s ear. I feel him always watching me, waiting for the moment to strike.”

Malik nodded (but didn’t sigh). “I have a new task for you. A target has fled from Acre and our Mentor believes he will come here. He expects the man will seek to find favor and protection from Majd Addin and we are to locate and report his presence as soon as possible. His name is Garnier de Naplouse and he was the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitalier. He is a cruel man that tortures people but says he hopes to heal them.” 

He is most likely a rapist; he was most likely favored by our mentor once but no longer.

Nidal nodded his head. “I will do my best, Rafiq.”

“That will be more than enough,” Malik assured him. “Safety and peace.”

Nidal nodded again and turned to leave.

\--

Altair came back as he’d left in the morning. There was no blood, no fresh wounds, and no black cloud of hatred hanging over his head that indicated anything had happened while he was away. It was only the strange concern in his eyes as he watched Malik trying to force himself to attend to his endless task of making maps. 

“What did you find?” Malik asked when he could not even pretend to concentrate on his task any longer. He looked at Altair’s face but he did not like the pity he saw there. (Thought perhaps that Altair had felt the same way about the useless pity Malik had extended toward him in the aftermath of discovering the awful truth of what happened to him.) 

“Majd Addin is not one of the men,” Altair said quietly. “Perhaps I was wrong.”

Oh yes, perhaps Altair had been wrong. Perhaps he had only been right about how Al Mualim had betrayed his favorite and no other. Perhaps Dani’s death had been an unfortunate turn of events. Perhaps the boy assassin that died in Acre was a terrible coincidence. Perhaps Talal’s mocking laugh as he died was foolishness and Tamir’s bloody words over small pieces of a whole was the last gasp of dying insanity. Perhaps Altair had been stripped of his rank and married off because it was finally the justice that Malik had spent his life in need of. 

“Would Al Mualim send boys to their death to force me to send you back to him?” Malik asked. Because _perhaps_ that is what was happening with every barely capable little boy that died needlessly.

To his credit, Altair didn’t answer immediately. He stood on the opposite side of the counter from him with his arms tensed at his side and his hands curled up in loose fists while he considered the question. His stone face was unreadable until he let out a gust of air. “Malik,” he said (very calmly). “He is capable of anything.”

Because one question could not be asked without the other, Malik said, “did he send my brother to his death?”

Altair said nothing. Nothing in defense of the man who had been like his father for so many years. Nothing to ease the terrible thought before it could set its teeth into Malik’s throat and tear apart what comfort he’d managed to scrap together for himself in these past months. Nothing at all but the same nothingness of expression that he had always employed.

“It does not matter,” Malik said in the next moment. He waved his hand in the air to wipe away the words and the thoughts and the still-brewing consolation hiding behind Altair’s face. “There is another target coming to our city. His name is Garnier de Naplouse. I have set the informants on finding him. Al Mualim believed Majd Addin will protect this man.”

“But Majd Addin is not one of them,” Altair said.

“We do not know enough to make assumptions of any kind. Find the man, Garnier, and see if he is one of the six.” It was foolish work to send Altair out to do. If Garnier were one of the men that had hurt him, having to find but not harm him was a brand of torture that Malik should have had a hint of regret for assigning. But there was no other man that could identify him.

“Malik,” Altair said quietly. “I do not know if Kadar was meant to die at Solomon’s Temple. But when Robert de Sable spoke to me there he said, ‘you are a rare jewel’ and ‘tell the old man I do not want his gifts.’ If Kadar was meant to die there, we were all meant to die there. Perhaps we should revisit it to see if there is any—”

But what would be left in Solomon’s Temple now that Malik had carried the terrible treasure straight to the man that was willing to allow them all to die just for the chance to possess it? Malik nodded (did not sigh) and said, “I will go.”

\--

That night, long after they had laid in darkness without rest, Altair reached across the solid protective ridge of his sword to put a hand across Malik’s chest. His fingers curled into the looseness of his sleeping clothes and then flattened out again. Malik put his hand over Altair’s and expected the man to pull away but he did not.


	19. Chapter 19

Altair tried not to have favorites among his novices. (He had tried relatively hard not to have novices under his command, but had failed in that ambition.) They were all burdened with their own weaknesses. Not a single one of them excelled at every aspect of the training he was offering them. 

Aaron was easily the best at slipping through crowds unnoticed but he could barely hold his own in combat. Dinah had come to him with excellent pick-pocketing skills but she still could not successfully blend with a crowd. Peninah could handle a dagger with ease (she had managed to cut Altair across the upper arm and smirked in pride rather than wilt with guilt) but she couldn’t manage a sword or go without notice. 

Then there was Mary. Mary who came to him with dead-dark-eyes and a pale-scarred face. Mary whose body was pocked with the wounds of her life. She rolled her sleeves up, planted her bare feet to the dirt and faced him with absolutely no fear. Mary didn’t talk like the others. Mary did not care what his story was or try to share her own. Oh no, Mary had been devastated by her life, by the injuries inflicted on her and her own inability to fight back. She was _furious_ and _fearless_ and it gave her an edge over the others that made her an easy favorite.

Mary hit him with the full brunt of her strength every time they sparred. Altair could not bring himself to return the favor but he did not spare her entirely. She had marks on her from their matches. But she came again and again, standing across from him in the center of a crumbling building and pulling the scarf off her head. Some man had cut her hair off a few months ago and it grew in clumps and odd patches in between the rolled scars on her scalp. 

“I’ve heard the Templars talking,” Mary said to him as she dropped her scarf in the dirt. She started a series of stretches that he’d taught her. “There is one that likes to torment my friend, Leah. He likes to hit her when he is fucking her. I would like to put a knife between his ribs.”

Altair understood the impulse. “Have you killed before?”

“No,” Mary said. She was stretching her arm across her chest before dipping down to press her hands to the ground. The slight length of her body was shaped by chronic abuse and starvation. Her bones poked at her elbows and knees, her collarbone was a prominent ridge above the nearly non-existent bulge of her breasts. “I don’t imagine it would be that difficult.” Not for her, because she felt nothing at all. But of all the things she had done and had survived, she had not yet watched the light leave a man’s face and Altair did not wish it on her. “The Templar spoke of some man returning to Jerusalem. He seemed to think that the man would bring a mighty power with him.”

Most likely Robert De Sable.

Altair nodded his thanks for her information. Then he picked up the length of wood he’d found in the street and held it out in front of him as if it were a sword. “We will work on disarming today.”

Mary nodded. “Show me.” 

He showed her how to hold it like a weapon and then he took it from her as she tried to hit him with it. Again and again he disarmed her while her quick-dark-eyes watched his every move. When she thought she understood, she motioned at him to keep it. They spent the whole of the morning in it before she managed to pull it from his hand. 

They sat on the crumbling roof of the building, watched the people in the streets while they ate and enjoyed the peace of silence. Mary wanted nothing from him except the knowledge of fighting that he had to offer. 

“I am looking for a man named Garnier De Naplouse,” Altair said when he was finished eating. 

Mary dusted her hands off and nodded her head. “I will listen for his name.” Then she went on her way.

\--

Altair went to find the Templar that Mary told him about. He was easy to find with the bold red cross on his uniform and the silver helmet that he wore. It was not his business, his concerns were a great deal more significant than a single abusive man but that did not give Altair a moment of comfort as he considered what he should do about it. 

Killing the man would be an easy matter. 

Too easy, perhaps. Altair had not killed anyone since the guards that he slaughtered without a moment of hesitation. The echoing memories of how easily had been to take their lives still haunted the back of his head. Death had never been a _difficult_ task for Altair to accomplish. But it had never been as easy as it had been that day.

He crouched on the edge of the building looking down at the Templar standing in the street and wondered if he could simply give Mary a knife and let her do what she wished. It wouldn’t be hard to show her where and how to push the blade through the right ribs. It wouldn’t be difficult at all to send her on her way with a blessing that she find the peace that had been robbed of her.

And-yet-and-yet Malik’s voice was in his head like a phantom saying, _you have no respect for the lives of others_ , and _if I give you a weapon it would the same as saying I encourage you to act so rashly_. 

Altair left without finding a resolution to the problem.

\--

The bureau was uncomfortably small for all the questions that it housed. Malik’s task was an unenviable one as he managed the continued stream of information from Masyaf with a tactful skill that obviously taxed his patience. There was a trickling flow of assassins that still came to him from their travels looking for respite from the _doubt_ that plagued men far removed from their homes. Malik had to be a steady-unwavering source of comfort for them.

Altair could not have managed it. He barely managed to tolerate the presence of the unknown entities that came for a good meal and a soft place to sleep. His reputation preceded him (as it always had) and nobody bothered him. 

But Malik was ragged with the effort of reassuring men of truths he no longer believed were completely true. In the confines of their bed, where they felt safe, Altair said, “have your informants heard news of Garnier?”

“I have heard no reports. Nidal has not been back since I sent him to look.” Malik was settling in to sleep and doing a poor job of finding a comfortable way to lay. “When the men leave tomorrow I will go to Solomon’s Temple. You will need to be back at the bureau by midday tomorrow.”

“I will,” Altair said. They lapsed into silence in an attempt to sleep.

\--

In the morning, Altair went to find Nidal. He was not difficult to locate now that he’d inadvertently discovered where the man lived. Even if Altair did not have that bit of knowledge, he would still be able to pick Nidal’s dingy white robes out of the other members of the city. Altair followed him across the rooftops through the city, hoping to find some indication the man had found out something about Garnier or could take him to someone that might know. 

Altair followed him for twenty minutes before Nidal ducked around a corner and Altair sat on the roof trying to figure out what the hell the man was doing. His movements around the city had been erratic at best. It was possible (but not probable) that Nidal was not as good an ally as they thought. It was more possible that the man was simply not as good an informant as they thought.

“You have been following me,” interrupted Altair’s thoughts. Nidal was on the roof behind him, his hood pushed away from his head. His thick brown hair was a mat on the top of his head and his cheeks were darkened from a surge of anger rising blood to the surface of his skin. “ _You_ are following _me_ ,” Nidal repeated (in case he did not hear him). “What did you hope to accomplish?”

The truth did not seem safe to share. “You haven’t returned to the bureau in many days. I wanted to know what you do since you obviously do not do your job.”

Nidal’s mouth opened and then closed again. He looked blankly to the side a moment before looking directly back at Altair as he got to his feet. Nidal waited until he was standing at his full height before he spoke again. “ _You_ doubt me? You doubt my loyalty to the brotherhood, to the _creed_? You? Who I have defended against every accusation? You, who has done so much to deserve the title you now hold? You, who has made no friend among our brothers and enjoys no friendship of any sort? You! You that I have fought for? You that I have held in high opinion _despite_ the deficits of your character _dare_ to question my ability to complete my tasks? You dare follow me as if I were some novice boy that needed minding? I have been the eyes and ears of this city since long before you were even an _assassin_ , boy.”

“I meant no offense,” Altair said quietly.

“You did,” Nidal snapped. “You and your husband are one and the same, convinced of your own superior worth! I _thought better_ of you. You disappoint me.”

Altair was not sure how he should respond to the words. “I did not mean to.”

Nidal made a scoffing noise of disgust. “I can give you no information. You are not an assassin. Speak to your own informants if there is something you need to know.” Then he turned and left. 

\--

On his way back to the bureau (with his head full of conflicts), Altair was drawn toward the sound of a man’s voice begging for freedom against a chorus of guards accusing the man of minor crimes. Altair rolled his eyes as he followed the sound and came around a corner to find the crowd (as always) moving past the cries of the desperate scholar insisting his innocence. There was a broken crate by the base of a building at his left and he ducked down to pick up one of the planks of wood and took a step forward.

But Dinah slid up behind one of the guards and lifted a dagger from his belt that she passed back to Peninah and then slid out again turning around to make a taunting gesture at the guards. Two of them followed her and Peninah shoved the scholar out of the path of the guards and took his place with her stolen dagger raised in front of her. 

Altair watched but did not intervene to see how she would fare against such overmatched opponents. For a few minutes she did well, managed to deflect the blows that they attempted to land and then (after the scholar had successfully escaped) she turned and fled into the crowd. She ran directly into the path of several men that were clearly waiting for a fight. The guards were outmatched. 

\--&\--

Altair was proud-but-not-arrogant when he returned to the bureau at midday. It was a soft look on his normally hard face. Malik thought of asking him if his little novices had managed some spectacular feat and decided against it.

“I will return as soon as possible,” Malik said when he left Altair to guard the bureau.

\--

The trip to Solomon’s Temple was uneventful. Malik did not follow the route they had taken to enter the temple during the mission but went, instead, to his brother’s grave. He paused there a moment.

“I do not know the truth yet,” he said to the dirt that covered his brother, “but if I find your death was _planned_ , I will seek the justice you deserve.” It seemed too small a promise to contain the depth of it. Malik’s whole body was sick with a rising need for vengeance he was not even certain was necessary. In his head he saw the bloody-body of the boy-assassin, Dani with his lips gone white from blood loss and his fingers in useless curls gasping about how he had tried to do his best. 

This was the death that awaited the assassins that put their trust in Al Mualim. 

\--

The long corridor that led from the exit Malik had fled from to the interior room where they had discovered Robert (and the treasure). He carried a torch to light his way, tried to feel comfort in the weight of the sword hanging at his side and found that it was a poor attempt. He would have to drop the torch to draw his weapon and the amount of time it would take to do so significant reduced his chances of survival.

It was a stupid worry when Solomon’s Temple had been abandoned ever since he carried its treasure away. But it persisted, like phantom flashes of red-washed-mud across the ground as he though he saw the spot of his brother’s death again and again. 

At last, he came to the room. The caved in wall had settled in all the time since Altair had been sent crashing through it, the debris spread across the floor and the dust that had filled the air that day was a thick layer over the broken wood and rocks. Looking at it now—clearly—it was a wonder that Altair had survived. (That sour black part of Malik turned over on its snake-belly wondering why it was that _Altair_ had survived being thrown through a wall and Kadar had not survived at all.) There was no good to come of dwelling on what could not be changed so Malik forced himself to look away from it. 

The table that had been scattered with papers when they arrived had fallen over in the struggle and the contents were thrown out across the ground beyond it. Malik found a niche in the tumble of broken rocks to set the torch. He sifted through the things that had fallen—an old map with frayed edges, a few pages from a ledger written in script too small to make out in the flickering light of the torch, a cup that was chipped from the fall and a spare throwing knife that had gone astray. He shuffled forward, dusted his fingers through the debris looking for anything worthy of note. 

It seemed as if the torchlight was throwing ghosts against the wall, the phantoms of the men that had died in this miserable place. (The echo of his brother’s shocked cry as the blow that severed his artery hit the soft inside of his leg.) 

Malik sat with his back against the crumbling wall, let his legs sprawl out in front of him and looked at nothing—look at the doorway, at the scuffed ground, at the rocks of the collapsed exit. He looked at his own hand and felt the loss of the other so acutely that it was like a burning-pain. 

He looked at nothing and then he saw the open sprawl of a book kicked under an avalanche of tiny rocks and pebbles. It did not look like much of a distance and he did not move immediately to get it but stared at it. He tried to work out in his head if he wanted proof that his brother’s death had been at the hands of a traitor or if he wanted Kadar’s death to be the result of his own laziness with his training. He was trying to work out if it would be a greater comfort to be able to seek justice or if he simply wanted the time-and-space to heal the wounds this awful place had left on him. 

There was no answer without proof; and that is what motivated Malik up to his feet and across the distance to where the book lay open. He picked it up and a rain of broken bits fell away. A sheet of paper—folded many times—fell from the loose ruffle of pages and Malik could barely make himself look at it.

He’d seen one like it before. He had seen the handwriting many times. He knew what it was even before he could bring himself to reach down to pick it up. When he carried it back to the torch and spread it out across the fallen rocks to look at it more clearly, it was full of confusing letters and symbols set all out of order. 

A code. Whatever truths this letter contained, Al Mualim had felt it necessary to take the extra precaution to protect against discovery.

But the journal was not so well protected. It was written in French—barely a bother to translate—with clear bold letters. The page Malik had open spoke in delightful anticipation of the discovery of the long-sought-after treasure. The next and the next spoke of the pursuit for it and the mention of many others that offered financial support for the endeavor. It spoke of friends-and-allies that would benefit from the conquering of the holy land and how much use the treasure would have for each of them.

And the next and the next spoke of the possibility of betrayal.

And the next-and-the-next spoke of each member of this small brotherhood individually and weighed the likelihood of them turning against Robert. Malik thought he could pick Tamir and Talal from the others based on what little he knew of them. And one that was most likely Garnier—a man who sought to ‘heal’ men’s minds. 

Then the last: _The old man has tasted the power that comes from the command of loyal men and it has driven him toward higher aspirations. He is hungrier for power than he is concerned with the fate of mankind he claims to care so deeply about. He claims to endeavor to free men but he raises slaves. His hypocrisy knows no end. If there is a traitor among us—he would be the first I’d name. A man who has already betrayed his own is capable of betraying anyone._

Malik threw the book and screamed at it (here, where nobody could see). It was the impotent action of a child. 

Malik shouted at the walls and picked up a rock and threw it and kicked at the table that shook but didn’t break. And when the fury in his chest turned liquid and his face was burning, he pushed his fist against his forehead and could not (did not try to) stop the ragged drag of wet breath. 

\--

Malik returned the bureau and sat on the roof because he could not force himself to go back inside. It seemed impossible to imagine returning to his place behind the counter. All of his trying to work out how they had come to be _here_ in this awful predicament and he could not work out (at all) how it had been his name that Al Mualim chose when he needed to pick one of many to send to face Robert. The fact that they, the assassins, had all been betrayed was a heavy weight in his gut but the still unknown depth of the betrayal made his shoulders slump.

Altair—who was normally quiet—was loud below him, moving around in pointless circles before he gave up waiting. He opened the grate and climbed out of it, sat next to Malik on the roof with their feet hanging off. 

“What did you find?” Altair asked. For him, the physical proof could not have offered any more comfort than the knowledge he already carried in his chest. Altair knew the truth of Al Mualim, he’d known it longer than anyone. He had that truth violently (repeatedly) fucked into his body.

Malik pulled the journal out of his robe and handed it to him. “You were right. Robert named Al Mualim as an ally. He thought he was mad with power. There is a letter that I could not decipher.” 

Altair found it and unfolded it out in the gray light of the fading day. It was spread over his lap as he frowned at it. Malik did not watch him try to make sense of the letters and symbols. He looked out at the fading light as the sun dropped slowly but inevitably toward the horizon. He closed his eyes and drew in the smell-and-sound-and-taste of the city alive around him. In the absence of certain purpose, he filled himself with the monotony of _life_ and used it as a protective barrier against the knowledge that would come as soon as Altair worked out the meaning of the letter. 

It could have been only a few minutes. It might have been hours. Malik did not open his eyes again until the vicious drag of quick breath in through teeth pulled him out of the gray nothingness. Altair was stiffening upright as his lips pulled away from his teeth in disgust. “I was a gift, you were a sacrifice to prove Al Mualim’s loyalty. He was going to do it _again_!” Altair shouted. His voice was loud across the streets, loud enough to draw the attention of people below them. When he looked at Malik he was _furious_ and it crumbled the stone of his face. The man was not impervious in that moment but _human_ (desperate and _hurt_ but oh-so-sure at the same time). “He should have killed me,” Altair said in the next moment.

Certainty was a cold relief. Certainty shifted inside of his chest like a bone set right after a painful break. Malik did not spare a moment to doubt the truth of the words (once spoken) because they were the final confirmation of every observation he had made since he woke up with a wife and no brother. Everything that had been an illogical jumble only that morning was set back in its place. The whole terrible truth had been revealed and sense restored. Malik-and-Kadar were meant to die. Altair was never meant to be returned. But Malik had stolen the treasure that Al Mualim coveted and his reward had been the object of his filthy desire. It must have seemed like a neat solution to the old man as he grasped his hands around his precious treasure. It must have been _genius_ to him when he was sure that Altair would be reinstated when he was needed and cowed by being married. Al Mualim must have imagined Malik would be grateful for a wife and Altair would be pliant and usable when he was finally returned. Oh-but “He should have killed us both,” Malik said. “It is a mistake that he will live only long enough to regret.”


	20. Chapter 20

The bureau was an uncomfortable fit for the conversation they hid inside of its walls. Their bedroom was an unlikely setting to face one another with bloody-frankness. Malik was stripped of the uniform that named him an Assassin. He sat across from Altair with his chest bared and their collection of proof set out between them. The journal and the encoded letter an odd pair with the many slips of communication from Al Mualim himself. 

“Robert spoke of a treasure,” Malik said to him. “I believe it is the treasure that I brought back to Masyaf. There is no mention of what it is, save that it has great power over man’s mind.”

“Whatever it is, Al Mualim will not hesitate to protect it at the cost of every man under his command,” Altair said. “If he has been as careless with the lives of the young assassins as you say he has, there is truly nothing he will not do to keep this treasure. We need to know more about it.”

“We do,” Malik agreed. “These men that are mentioned in the journal. They are most likely some of the same that rap—” He must have seen the convulsive tightness of Altair’s hands because he did not finish the word. Instead he paused and said (very quietly), “it is what happened, Altair.”

“I was there,” Altair said. The fury in his chest was too great to sort out, the half-acknowledged and half-accepted things were still breaking apart. The confusion of _intent_ and _hurt_ and _anger_ made him feel unstable. He could have shouted at Malik for hours about the things that were done to him and how it had happened _to him_ and only _he_ could define it. And yet, the truth (long denied) persisted. No good could come from denying it any longer. “Robert’s allies are the men that raped me at the invitation of our mentor. They must know what the treasure is.”

Malik nodded. “They must know the name of the others. If this man, Garnier comes to our city, we should make it our priority to find him before Al Mualim can send another to do so.” 

“They will not give the information easily,” Altair said.

It was a curious thing to watch the satisfaction of those words go through Malik’s face. As if he had only been waiting for that realization to dawn on him. Vicious, bloody _anticipation_ came across his face like a smug smile. “We will persuade them as necessary.” Then he looked down at the spread of papers again and something flinched in the center of his forehead. “We cannot ask for help from our brothers yet. This is a burden too great to share now. We will need the eyes and ears of your novices to bring us what information we cannot get from the informants.”

“They have not found much,” Altair said. But also, “how long have you known?”

“For some time. Nidal spoke of how some of the city’s omegas and women had started fighting back against the guards. He thought he recognized their methods and it was not a struggle to deduce the rest. If they are able, they would be a powerful asset.” 

Altair thought of them, and of the ones that had started searching for him. They were out of their depth against any greater enemy than a cruel-meaning guard but they had the _potential_ to take back some of the control that their lives and circumstances had stripped away. “They are able. I will go and speak to them tomorrow to see if they have heard anything.”

“You have already been using them to gather information,” Malik said without any hint of anger. It was merely a quiet acknowledgement. “When we know more, we will plan our next move. We should sleep.”

Altair nodded. Malik tucked their bits of proof away where they would not be easily found. Altair dampened the little lamps that provided puddles of light. They lay in the darkness, each of them trying to convince the other that they were asleep. It was late (almost morning) when Altair finally reached across to pull Malik a few inches closer to him, where he could rest his hand comfortably across his chest. 

Malik said nothing but put his hand across Altair’s. (Like the last time.)

\--

The next day, Altair went looking for Aaron (the best in a crowd) and did not find the boy before he was found. Aaron crashed into him from the side in the center of a moving crowd, wound both his arms around him and pulled him bodily sideways. They went in a slant to match the motion of the crowd until they broke free from it.

“What?” Altair demanded.

Aaron had a bruise on his cheek (not nearly unusual enough to make note of). “You need to go find Mary,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you the whole day. Dinah said Mary asked her to find a good dagger and would not tell her why she needed it. We haven’t seen Mary since.”

Altair sighed. He pulled Aaron’s face up and to the side to get a better look at the bruise across his cheek and didn’t like the look of it. “Who did this to you?”

“I fell,” Aaron said. He smiled with pride about it, as if he were pleased to have wounded himself. “I have been practicing my climbing. I slipped. Please find Mary.”

He already knew where Mary was, he did not need to go looking for her. Altair let go of Aaron’s face before he spoke. “I will go find her. Find the others, tell them that I need to find a man named Garnier De Naplouse. He will be looking for Majd Addin, he will try to hide.”

“I will,” Aaron swore.

“Use caution,” Altair said sharply. “Do not put yourself at risk.” Aaron nodded before he turned back and slid back into the flow of the crowd. He was gone in a moment, out of view and indistinguishable from the many bodies around him. 

\--

Mary was easy to find. Altair needed only to remember where he had seen the Templar and where Mary stayed with the prostitutes and barren women who banded together in an attempt to protect themselves. He found her squatting next to a body next to a bale of hay. There was a wash of slowly-browning red blood all across the ground, a gaudy splash of it on Mary’s clothes and the hay behind her. 

His shadow caused her to start and look upward. Her lax hand tightened around the hilt of the knife but it relaxed almost instantly when she saw him. Her face was impassive, her eyes the same deadened brown of the day before as she looked down at her first kill. The Templar was massive in comparison, the full weight of his body must have been easily double Mary’s. 

“He came again last night,” Mary said. “I could not bear to listen to her cry another day.”

Altair understood. He looked down at the man’s body, at the depth of the cuts across his neck and belly. The multiple long wounds where the knife had stabbed into his body and the stain of blood across the white of his uniform. 

“I feel nothing,” Mary said. “Perhaps you should kill me. I am capable of this,” she motioned at her work, “and I am not sorry. I am not conflicted. I am not pleased. It is nothing. I could do this to anyone.”

Altair stepped around the body, reached down and curled an arm under hers and pulled her back up to her feet. She came easily, walking away from the damning evidence of her crime. He did not take the dagger from her hand but took her back toward her home with the other women. “Some of us are capable of these things and some of us are not. You can still be a force of good in this world.”

Mary didn’t believe him. “Listen for name to be called from the gallows, Altair.” Then she looked down at the blood all over her clothes and hands. “Why did you come find me?”

“They others were worried. If they matter, clean yourself up, destroy these clothes and go find them to tell them you are well. If they do not matter, do not speak to them again.” Altair let her go and she wavered a moment with indecision. “Go, it is not safe for you to be out here like this.”

So Mary went.

\--

Altair waited for Aaron on the same rooftop they always met. The boy came in the afternoon, with his face covered in sweat. He fell on his knees next to Altair with his breath in great heaves and hard pants.

“I have told everyone,” he said. “If the man comes to the city, we will know of it.”

“Thank you,” Altair said. “I will come here the same time tomorrow to see you.” 

\--

Back at the bureau, Malik was bent over his maps. To anyone that entered, he must have seemed like exactly the same faithful stooge that he always had. A man who knew his place and was happy in it. There was a slight twitch in his cheek when Altair dropped in from above to indicate he was aware he was no longer alone. When Altair was close enough to be seen, Malik looked out of the corner of his eyes at him and then back again at the map.

“What news?” Malik asked.

“None,” Altair said. He pulled the scarf off his head (thought fondly of the hood he had always worn before) and dropped it on the counter far away from Malik’s work. “What news from your informants?”

“None,” Malik said. He straightened up, and made an unhappy noise at the motion. “Is there any hope for food?”

For one moment, the normalcy of the question was so ridiculous that Altair could not keep himself from rolling his eyes. He went to stand directly opposite of Malik and put his hands on either side of the map he’d been working on (a more accurate version of Jerusalem). “Are you not capable of making your own?”

“I have grown fond of the particular taste of your meals,” Malik said. But it was evident from the expression on his face that he hadn’t considered that anything should change between the two of them. The fragile peace they’d made of their marriage could not sustain any (further) damage so Altair did not press the issue. 

“Then I will feed you tonight and teach you how to use the dishes tomorrow.” Altair went into the interior rooms to make a meal.

\--&\--

They sat together while they ate. Altair looked at the blood stain on the table with a blank-expression on his face as he chewed and swallowed. Whatever he was thinking, it had taken him far-away-from-here. Perhaps he was unravelling what they did know of the events that had brought them to this moment. Perhaps he was doing what Malik had done earlier (alone, in this bureau he hated). 

Picking up the things that had seemed out of order before and setting them in neat rows. Altair was a gift to men Al Mualim needed to gain the favor of, a prize for men who had done well (perhaps an attempt to persuade them to his side against De Sable) and Malik was an offering to prove loyalty to the band of madmen. 

“You are grinding your teeth,” Altair said. His voice seemed abrupt—sudden and from nowhere—so that Malik was snapped back out of his thoughts into the present world. “What is bothering you?”

“Why would he marry you to me?” Malik asked. 

Altair’s eyebrow twitched upward at the words but he was not amused. (Maybe a little, maybe just surprised at them.) “You are a loyal man. You have always excelled at completing your missions while remaining loyal to the Creed. While it means nothing to Al Mualim, it means a great deal to you. I imagine he thought that if he had need of me again that he could easily convince you to allow me to return for the good of the Creed.”

“Loyal is not the same as naïve,” Malik said.

Altair shrugged. “We may never know why he did this to us. But we will have the victory in the end.” Then he licked at the taste of something caught at the edge of his lips and looked skeptically at Malik’s body. “If we are going to wage a war against many enemies, perhaps we should work on improving our skills.”

“Improving _my_ skills,” Malik corrected for him. “Do you imagine that I spend all the time you are gone doing nothing?”

“I have no reason to believe otherwise. There is not much excitement or challenge in drawing maps. I have never witnessed you do anything more strenuous than that. I mean no offense, Malik.”

No offense seemed exactly opposite of what Altair meant. “I have not been as idle as that, Altair. You are often gone. I do not have as thorough a routine as you but I have been working to regain and maintain my strength.”

Altair nodded then. “Then we will work on our skills and not our bodies.” He stood up and picked up his empty dish. “You have always been better with a sword than I. You can show me.”

\--

They faced one another in the outer room. Altair stripped so his chest was bare and pulled his boots off and put them to the side. The intensiveness of his exercise routine had kept the muscle definition in his arms and chest these many months. Training with his own personal novices had left bruises and shallow cuts across his skin over the weakest points. The darker the mark, no doubt, the more times he was obliged to allow himself to get hit. 

“I do not think we have sparred in years,” Malik said.

“We have not. This will be interesting.” It was difficult to discern from the toneless quality of his voice if he meant the words sincerely. Altair had never once seemed to enjoy anything (aside from winning, he seemed honestly pleased about his victories). He stood opposite of Malik now, tall-and-strong with no visible damage for all the wrongs that had been done to him.

“It will,” Malik agreed after a pause. He took his own stance and prepared himself. In the half-moments before they started, he had only enough time to wonder if Altair would treat him as an equal or give him an unwanted advantage for the arm he had lost. 

\--

There was blood in Malik’s mouth and a fresh-seizing pain in his unprotected left side. He was on his knees with his elbow braced against the ground and red-streaked-spit dangling out of his mouth. Every breath of air was a whistle of pain over his aching ribs.

It was simply that he’d forgotten how ruthless Altair was. He’d forgotten why the man had been forbidden from training with the younger novices. The full-grown men who had been assassins for years hesitated to face Altair in the training yard. They spoke of his inherent weakness and the many failings of his sex but they would not face him openly unless they absolutely had to. Malik had not fought Altair in nearly four years. Time had dimmed-and-shaded the memory so it was full of holes. 

There was comfort in seeing Altair clutching his own ribs with his bottom lip swelling and his breath in heavy pants. There was more color in his face than there had ever been since they were married and a greater, deeper delight in his eyes. 

“This is fun for you?” Malik asked. 

Altair tipped his head to the side, lifted and dropped his shoulders without even pretending that it wasn’t. His knuckles were raw from the effort of cracking them across Malik’s chest. “I admit, you are better than I expected.”

Malik sat back on his ass with a grunt of effort and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Should I think of that as a compliment or an insult?”

But Altair’s grin faded away at the words. “Take it however you want.” Then he straightened up to his full height. “You have always been an excellent assassin, Malik. You are determined, technically proficient and mentally-capable. I have always had respect for you as an assassin.”

“But?” Malik prompted. His legs were spread out in front of him, his hand felt numb from the fight and his forearm was bruised from blocking against the blows that Altair hadn’t managed to land. 

“That is all.” Altair came over to him and held his hand out to offer Malik help to his feet. Malik allowed it and only regretted moving at all after he was on his feet and all of his aches renewed.

\--

In the morning, Altair was full of energy and Malik was full of aches. They dressed and ate and went to the outer room to practice their swordsmanship. Altair stalled momentarily when Malik chose one of the smaller, shorter swords and took his place opposite him.

“What?” Malik demanded.

“Try not to stab me,” Altair said plainly. “I might be carrying your son.”

Malik had forgotten about that possibility. (If not forgotten, stacked it at the back of his head where it was shuffled out of importance in the light of other things.) He motioned to the side with his own sword. “I will try to remember that.”

Altair nodded. Then he rose his own sword.

\--

The fight was brief. Altair—for his strength and speed and ruthless violence—was disarmed in the end. Malik had his foot over the blade of his fallen sword with a singing feeling of victory ricocheting down his spine. The look of shock on Altair’s face was too genuine to be faked and it neatly melted into an intense black anger. 

“You are sloppy,” Malik said before Altair could say anything. “If this is the technique you are teaching your young novices, you are doing them a great disservice. You were disarmed by a man with only one hand, Altair.”

“Ha,” Altair said. He ducked forward and grabbed his sword. Malik moved his foot away to allow him to take it. “You cannot do it twice.”

Malik wasn’t entirely sure how he had done it the first time. It was some combination of skill and luck that made it possible. One would help him in their coming fight and the other would hinder them entirely (if relied upon). “Let’s see.”

\--

The second round ended up with Altair’s hand on his shoulder and the cold press of his weapon against Malik’s gut. Up to the very last second, Malik hadn’t had enough confidence in Altair’s restraint to keep the surge of desperate fear from overcoming his common sense. That must have been why his hand was clutching at Altair’s hair, dragging his head back and bearing his throat in the most useless instinctual reaction ever.

“Two out of three,” Altair said.

“Fine,” Malik said before he could think better of it.

\--

The third match was interrupted by the arrival of Nidal who looked at them curiously but said nothing about why they were out in the outer room with weapons. Altair gave Nidal a cold look before he pulled himself up-and-out of the bureau and Nidal returned the cold look with a heated sneer of distaste. 

Malik considered asking after the cause and decided it was better if he did not. Instead he motioned inward and picked up his robe from where he’d left it hanging on the counter. He took his place as Rafiq (something he was not sure he had earned but thought might have been given to him as a distraction) and said, “what news?”

“Majd Addin has set two of his most trusted men to find and secure a home for an unknown guest. We have been following them around the city as best we can in hopes of finding the location of the home should the guest be Garnier.” Nidal looked back out toward the other room and then at Malik again. “Is there something I should be aware of, Rafiq?”

You serve a foul master. 

Malik shook his head. “I am endeavoring to correct many of Altair’s shortcomings with a sword so that if he attempts to teach his novices in the street he will teach them correctly.” That wasn’t exactly correct but it was as close to the truth as Malik could manage.

Nidal didn’t look convinced but he nodded.

“Safety and peace,” Malik said.

“Safety and peace to you as well, Rafiq.” Then Nidal went on his way.

\--

Altair stayed gone long enough to Malik to finish the improved map of Jerusalem. He came back and said, “Majd Addin is preparing a house for someone. It is the poor district.” That was one significant detail more than Nidal had told him earlier. 

“Do you know the exact location?” Malik asked.

“I know it is one of two places. My novices are watching the houses to see who enters them.” Altair rubbed at one of his shoulders with his hand and winced when his hands happened across a particularly sore spot. But he was eying the sword that Malik had left sitting on the countertop with deep interest. “We did not finish our match.”

“We did not,” Malik agreed. He left his map to dry and followed Altair back out to the outer room.

\--

The final match did not end in a draw. Malik would have died if they had been in a true fight but Altair would have joined him in the end. He sacrificed his weak side for a momentary advantage that would have allowed him to kill the man. In a true fight, Malik would have lived long enough to watch Altair die. 

But the anger on Altair’s face surprised him.

“What?” Malik demanded. “Are you so easily offended? You have been defeated before.”

“If I must live long enough to give you a son, you must live long enough to father one,” Altair said. The words were so blunt and heavy. And out of place with the sweat still making their skin shine-and-stick. “Do not be so careless with your own life, Malik.” Then he took a step back. “I will make our supper.” He disappeared without another word.

\--

They ate and Altair scrubbed his head and face with the cool water from the fountain. His clothes were in a pile by the doorway as he crouched naked by the water and the fading light of the evening cast long shadows across the room. Malik had rinsed his own hair and face and scrubbed the worst of the smell of his body away before he ate. There was no reason for him to stand and watch Altair as he rubbed the cold water on his face or dribbled it down the back of his neck. 

“Why are you watching me?” Altair asked.

“I can stop if it makes you uncomfortable.” Malik was not even sure why he was staring at the man. Why he was watching the muscles in his back move as he scooped the water up and poured it over himself. He was thinking-thinking about those words from not so long ago and how angry Altair had been when he said them. (He was thinking sleepy-dangerous-things about how Altair-might-care.) 

But Altair turned enough to look at him but said nothing. Then he stood up and padded over toward him, stopped just far enough away that his whole body was a radiating warmth. “You have seen me in close detail, Malik. One would think you would tire of admiring the view.”

Malik snorted. 

Altair smiled (like _smirked_ ) at him and it should have been foul arrogance but Malik found himself smiling back. Something hot and familiar rose up from the bottom of his gut so that even when he tried, Malik could not shove it down again. It would have been easy if it were lust but it was lust-and-something tangled so tightly together he could not pull them apart again. Then Altair was stepping away from him, moving back toward their room and Malik was left with an uncomfortable tightness all over his body.


	21. Chapter 21

Peninah met him in the poor district, on the crumbling roof of an empty building. She was a small huddled shape near a broken wall. There was a cut across her neck that could easily have been fatal if only it were slightly deeper and offset to the side. But her face was full of color (still) and she smiled at him. 

“I have news for you,” she said before he could offer any sort of greeting. “Aaron has found the house the old man is hiding inside of. Aaron said he spoke with a French accent and had a cruel face but he did not hear the man’s name. Does this sound like the man you are searching for?”

Altair had a thousand details about the men who joined him in the dark-closed-rooms memorized but there had to be several men in the world that could be described as ‘cruel-faced’. He was reluctant to express any certainty or feel any sense of hope. “It seems likely,” he said.

Oh-and-how- _pleased_ Peninah was to hear that. She rose to her feet with her favorite dagger in her hand. “Will we still practice?”

“What happened to your neck?” Altair asked. He unwound the scarf that covered his hair and part of his face and dropped it in a corner where the wind would not blow it around. The clothing he was wearing was some of the last _nice_ clothing that he had so he pulled off what he could and stuffed it to the side to keep it clean and whole. 

“A knife,” Peninah said. She smoothed her fingertips across the scabbed line of the wound and then let her hand drop to her side again. “Teach me how to break free from the hold of bigger men.” 

Altair did not take a weapon but motioned her closer to his own body. She came, turned her back and he grabbed her the very same way he would have if he had intended to kill her. The shock of fear that ran through her body seemed to paralyze her for one second too long to save her life. He made a disapproving noise in his throat. “ _Fight_ ,” he said. “ _Never_ give, always fight.”

Then she started thrashing and broke free from his hold with a scream and a mad swipe of the dagger she held. He dodged it but the reddened-soaked-puff of her face was worse than letting her cut him. 

“Again,” Altair said.

And so they did it again, and again. Peninah’s panic giving slowly away to some more concentrated effort. Her neck was bleeding again by the time they came to a pausing point. Altair’s ribs were smarting from the many blows of a pointed elbow but there had been enough progress to suffer the minor pain easily. Peninah sat with her hand clenched around her favorite dagger and her hair soaking-wet from sweat. She looked up at him as he started to dress again. 

“Your nipples are dark,” she said.

Altair looked at his own chest and noted no significant difference. “They must have always been.” 

Peninah looked as if she meant to say something and did not.

\--

Altair was on his way back to the bureau when he happened to catch sign of Nidal on his way to the same destination. So he shuffled his footsteps and lagged long enough to allow the man to go speak to Malik. It was a painful temptation to keep from following after the man and laying across the grate to listen to the words he shared with Malik. (But doing so would only incite further anger from the man who might be a useful ally when the time came.) So Altair waited, indecisively, in the streets until Nidal left again.

\--

Fate had not given Malik a face that could hide secrets. His every expression was an obvious, painful sign of his inner thoughts so that even if Malik would not admit it (or perhaps was unaware) his face would contort as he worked on maps and his mind stumbled across something unpleasant. And then, again, when he found something inside of his own head that pleased him he would smile at nothing at all. 

When Altair returned to the bureau, he found Malik sneering hatefully at a little strip of paper he meant to send to Al Mualim. 

“What news?” Altair asked. He threw the scarf on the counter and put his hands against the smoothed top of it. There were no words written on the scrap yet which meant whatever had been discovered, Malik was unsure how to proceed. (Too much caution, Altair felt, was as bad as too much ambition.) “Has he been located?”

“Yes,” Malik said. He did not look up from the scrap of paper that he was staring at with so much hate. “I have to tell Al Mualim. It is strange to me that I cannot think of a single word I would waste on such a man now when only a few weeks ago we were exchanging numerous communications.” His eyes closed for a moment as the frown turned spiteful and then he looked at Altair. “How did you stand looking at this man after what he has done?”

There was no answer for Malik’s question. There was nothing to say that would have satisfied him. The truth was simply that Al Mualim had offered the most sincere-sounding-apologies for the inconvenient aches and pains Altair had suffered in servicing the men but he had held fast to the notion that it was Altair’s duty as much as killing had ever been. Al Mualim had treated him with equal parts kindness and repulsive disregard and always in quick succession. Altair craved the approval and the favor that Al Mualim offered him. (Even after, and perhaps he might always have wanted it had he not been married to Malik.)

“Tell him Garnier has been found,” Altair said. “And that it does not appear he will remain in the same location for long.”

“Hm,” Malik said (like a growl). “Have your own informants given you the location?”

“Yes. I have not gone and investigated it yet.”

“Do so,” Malik said. He motioned outward toward the grate. “I will find the words to tell our foul mentor we have found the man he seeks.”

\--

It was not hard to find the home that Peninah described to him. His familiarity with the city made locating anything relatively easy. The only effort he expended was in avoiding the attention of the guards that seemed to be constantly looking for him. (And if not him directly, any omega who did not look as if they would wilt at the first sign of force.) Altair had been forced to sit idly on a bench, join a crowd going in the opposite direction of where he wished to be and finally stand in the group of wives discussing their husbands’ favorite foods.

When he finally arrived at his destination, there were no men guarding the entrances. It was curious that such a vile man (used to many loyal guardians) would be left with so little protection. Altair kept his distance as he waited for Garnier to show himself. He spent the better part of an hour doing useless loops in the open space beyond the house before the old man finally showed his face.

His balding head reflected the late-afternoon sunshine but the many wrinkles and crags on his face seemed to collect shadows. His mouth was twisted up in a perpetual cruelness that was immediately familiar before the drawl of his voice beckoned for someone still within the home. His hands—strong (Altair remembered that) and often prone to ruthless assault—were large with prominent knuckles. He wore black and eyed the crowd of people before his temporary home with the air of a man considering which animal should be slaughtered next. 

Altair fled before he could be seen. His flight took him to the rooftops and through the city back toward the stagnated (confusing) comfort of the bureau and the man that filled the empty space behind the counter.

\--

There was a visitor when Altair returned. A brief, friendly visit from an assassin returning home after being gone for (far too long) carrying the burden of much news and great homesickness. He did not want to stay the night (for the best) but took provisions and fresh weapons with him when he went. 

As soon as the tips of his white uniform were gone from sight, Malik said, “what did you learn? Is this one of the men?”

“Yes,” Altair said. “One of the first two. He is a butcher, I remember Al Mualim told me to be careful not to let him cut me.” It had been an abstract thing to warn someone about in the weeks before sending them to fuck men for the good of all assassins but it had been useful knowledge in practice. 

“I have not heard back from our mentor,” Malik said. As if it were a possibility. As if Al Mualim could have received word of Garnier’s arrival, crafted a response and sent it back all in a few hours’ time. “If he does not set us on the task himself, how can we kill this man without arousing his suspicion?”

“You can’t,” Altair said. This he knew. But the surprise in Malik’s face that made his eyes widen and his cheeks lax seemed to indicate he hadn’t thought such a thing. “You are a Rafiq, Malik. You cannot be caught in defiance of Al Mualim’s wishes or the creed. If we are to be successful, you _must_ remain loyal.”

“You suggest that I should allow you to go alone to kill this man?” Malik said. “That _you_ are capable of finding and killing him without anyone seeing you? The idea is laughable. You delight in spectacle.”

Altair sighed. “There is no other choice. I do not delight in spectacle. I do what I was trained to do. A good assassin makes sure his work is seen by many. This is what I was taught. What we are doing now must be done secretly and unseen by _any_. If I am discovered, I will say revenge drove me to kill them. Al Mualim will believe me.”

“Our purpose is singular,” Malik said. “We cannot be separate.”

“Our purpose is singular,” Altair agreed. “But it is too important to risk both our lives. I can easily convince any man that I killed for my own purposes and that I did so without your knowledge. They will believe that I am capable of anything.”

Malik did not agree with him or did not like that he did. “It will not come to that. Al Mualim is greedy for this man’s death. Now that he is easily within our reach, he will order me to have you kill him.”

\--

The unknown haunted Malik in their bed. It kept him from sleep and made him restless in a constant twist and turn of motion interrupted by complaints about their bed and the weather and an ache in his shoulder. Each complaint was mumbled under his breath (to himself) until Altair reached across to drag him bodily closer. The sword was a hard ridge between their bodies as Altair dragged Malik’s hand up to press it against his chest and held him still. 

“Why do you sleep with a sword?” Malik asked. His voice was small in the blackness.

“So I do not feel defenseless. Now sleep.”

\--&\--

Their orders came, a quick (succinct) scrawl:

_Act immediately. Remove this foul stain from humankind._

Malik showed it to Altair who only nodded. It neither surprised not shocked him but fit neatly along with his own prediction.

\--

The task had to wait until dusk when Nidal was free to come and attend the bureau until Malik-and-Altair could return. Before he arrived, Malik searched through his things to find his own (now useless to him) hidden blade and gave it to Altair. He had expected the man would take it with relief or happiness but not to see the uncertain look on his face.

“I could not take this,” Altair said.

Malik had no time to work through whatever prompted Altair’s hesitancy. “You can. It is the best weapon to use if our aim is to kill without detection. This assassination does not need to be so quiet but the next might. Show me you know how to control yourself so that I do not have to worry you won’t return if our mission takes you away from our home.”

Altair cocked his head at the words and then took the blade from Malik. “I will not die before I see Rashid’s blood on my hands, Malik. You should not waste time worrying over that.”

It was a nice idea in thought but a hard promise to keep in practice. Malik waved his hand and said nothing else on the matter.

\--

Garnier was nestled into a modest, square-ish home with two men as guards. Altair led them straight to the home and sat with him on a bench, his body turned in toward Malik’s in a flattering way. “The easiest way of entering is through the door,” Altair said.

“I doubt his guards would appreciate our brashness,” Malik said. He put his hand on Altair in a grand show of ownership when a passing guard seemed offended by their presence. Easily put to ease knowing that such an unusual omega as Altair was already owned (and thus controlled) the man moved on without a word. 

“They are inside the home,” Altair countered, “better to kill them all inside than to allow the fight to spill out into the streets.” It was sound logic. So Malik nodded and the two of them got to their feet and strode across the street. Altair’s left hand was curled up in a fist but his right was palming a short knife. Malik had a dagger of his own when Altair let himself into this stranger’s home.

Initially the shock of uninvited entry bought them the advantage of a few precious seconds. A larger man came from the right with a shout of shock and Malik turned to face him even as Altair dashed to the left. The sound of a table toppling sideways was a loud clatter over the softer tearing sound of fabric and skin splitting over the pointed end of Malik’s blade. 

The man did not die immediately but the pain of having his guts torn open knocked him backward. Malik followed him down and drove the dagger through his throat before moving forward toward the sound of bodies moving. 

Altair had one foot in the center of man’s back while he dragged a resisting body the last precious inches forward onto the hidden blade to sever his heart from the rest of the body. The man had both arms pushing back against Altair’s chest in an effort to save his own miserable life and the man on the ground was trying to wiggle to freedom. 

Malik moved and the act alone drew the attention of the guard impaled on the hidden blade and allowed Altair to finish him. His body felt lifelessly to the ground and it was only the two of them and the disgusting-crawling-foul-thing on the ground. Altair lifted his foot off Garnier’s back and kicked him in the ribs hard enough to crack them. The force rolled him onto his side and Malik came over to look at him.

He seemed frail. The white cast of his face too pallid to be intimidating. His naked scalp fragile and easily torn. It was only the sturdy, thick drag of his black clothes that seemed to have any vitality in them. 

Awareness dawned slowly on Garnier’s face and only after Altair’ pulled the scarf away from his face. It came as pink-delight (not fear) and his voice in a heavy accent of French words. Malik’s grasp of the language was not poor but his ears were thrumming with a rush of hatred he couldn’t name the source of.

“Rashid has been too lenient with you,” was the first of it that Malik understood. “I had a wager with him, once. To see who could free a man’s mind from madness better. He lauded you as a success but you were a failure.”

Altair did not look impressed by the words. He ducked down to pick up the knife that he’d lost in the struggle and crouched at Garnier’s side. “Once. But, I am free now,” Altair said. “Allow me to provide you with the same freedom.”

“You speak of things you do not understand,” Garnier said.

Malik crouched on his other side. “You should speak of things we want to hear. Death is a freedom that we will not give lightly. Tell us what treasure Robert De Sable kept in Solomon’s Temple.”

Garnier laughed at that. “You ask me of the apple you held in your hands? What small minds you assassins have! No wonder none of you have seen your master for what he is.” He looked at Altair then, “I remember your skin, still. I remember how your blood flowed just under it so that your flesh was reddened by the rush of it. I could have freed you from the prison of your own mind, hm?”

“My mind is not a prison,” Altair said. He drove the knife into the man’s abdomen, so low down it was hardly half an inch from his penis. The black drape of Garnier’s clothing tore open and went wet with a fount of sudden blood. “I remember your skin as well. I remember every part of you,” Altair said, “your death will free me of the knowledge. Tell us what you know of the treasure and who worked with you to find it and I will spare you the torture you inflicted on so many.”

Garnier was gasping now and Malik tightened is hand around his own knife and stabbed it deep enough into the old man’s chest that it tore his skin and dragged across his ribs as he pulled it downward but did not push it into the soft flesh of his belly. The old man’s shrill sound of pain was a wet spray of spittle in the air and a contorting twist of his spine as he lifted away from the ground. 

“Speak nothing but the answer to his questions,” Malik said.

“It is a piece of Eden. It has power over men’s minds—ah,” he said when Altair dragged the knife free from him and wiped it clean on Garnier’s clothing. “I would not betray those that have shown me such great loyalty.”

Malik turned the knife sideways and slipped it upward between the outer layers of flesh and the bone. His knee hit the ground as he did it and the sound Garnier made was a clear-high-sound of pain. Malik did not speak as elegant French as his these two men so he spoke in his first language, “I do not delight in the torture of men.”

Garnier focused on him in that moment, as if he had not even bothered to notice him before. “You do not understand. I did not torture my children. I freed their minds—it was easier when I had the apple but I saved them from madness.”

Altair sank his knife into the man’s lower abdomen again. His face was expressionless as Garnier twisted in pain. “A name,” he said.

“What would you do with this name?”

“I would free my brothers from a man who is not what he claims to be,” Altair said. 

Garnier touched at his own bloody clothes and looked at the stain of red on his fingers with confusion. His cheeks were shaking from sudden pain and bloodloss and he was coated in a slick, cool sweat. “Your quest will end in death,” Garnier said.

“Yes. Rashid’s death.”

Garnier’s lips quirked at the edges as his eyelids drooped. “Abu'l Nuqoud. I did not care for him in life. Let his death lead you closer to killing the one that betrayed us all.” Then, (so quietly), “I go to my own endless dream now. Perhaps I will see my children there.”

Altair dragged his own knife free, leaned forward to slap his hand across Garnier’s face and shoved his head back to bare his throat. “There are no children in hell.” Then he cut the man’s throat so deep it exposed the bone of his spine. He wasn’t shaking (exactly) when he leaned back but so-still-he hardly seemed real. His every motion was devoid of humanity but composed of perfect grace. 

\--

Nidal went without a word of protest. He was pleased to be able to return to his wife and did not pause to wonder what they must have been doing. Altair closed the grate as Malik dropped the bloodied feather (he only barely remembered) into its place behind the counter. 

They had not learned much. Malik mulled it over as he set his bloodied weapon on the counter and tried to work out some words of comfort to give to Altair. He looked up toward the sound of the man’s footsteps in just enough time to see the clatter of the weapons falling as Altair threw them across the counter. The hidden blade, his sword and knives all crashed into the countertop seconds before Altair knocked into him. 

His touch was hard and suddenly ravenous. The close press of his body a threat and an enticing offer. Malik was being stripped off his belt and his robe before he could get enough sense to say, “what—”

Altair was burdened with less (as-in-no) armor and clothing that seemed to be especially easy to remove. He was entirely naked in the time it took for Malik to get free of his own confining pants. Altair shoved him and Malik fell backward and hit the ground hard enough there would be many bruises in the morning.

Altair’s hand was dry around his dick, squeezing to test how firm he was as Malik grabbed his waist to pull himself up to sitting. Altair’s body was hot-as-fire and fever-wet as he sank down on Malik’s cock. The sound he made was a fluttering-gasp of breath as his eyes closed and he bared his teeth. Then his hand was shoving Malik back down onto his back. 

The slippery-wet-thrusts of Altair’s hips were _intense_ and _hurtful_. Malik was gasping for breath and some sense of understanding, the noises he made were loud over the slick-slipping-sound of their bodies joining so that Altair slapped a hand across his mouth to silence him. 

Every motion was desperate. Altair folded forward, his elbow knocked against the ground near Malik’s ear as his back bowed and his own stiffened dick rubbed against Malik’s belly. His fingers tasted like dirt and blood and sweat pressing so hard against Malik’s mouth one pushed through his lips and against his teeth.

Malik jerked his head to the side and Altair’s hand slid off his face and hit the ground. The nearly imperceptible moan against his left ear seemed as frustrated as it was urgent for relief. The weight of Altair pinning him to the ground was too confining to enjoy so Malik arched up against him and Altair straightened back up to sitting. 

Then Malik followed him, pulled himself to sitting with an arm around Altair’s back, gripping at his slick skin for purchase. It wouldn’t have lasted if not for how Altair’s right arm went down under his left arm to hug his ribs. His left went over his right shoulder as his fingers spread thick-and-insistent through his hair. Altair’s cheek was against his temple as he fucked down-and-forward driving Malik inside. 

“Malik,” Altair said. (Oh-and how his name never-ever sounded so worthy or wonderful as it did when it was the desperate moaning gasp from this mouth.) He turned his head so his open mouth was a faint wetness near Malik’s temple. His thighs were shaking with the effort of his body and Malik thought (several times) he should move his hand to stroke Altair’s dick and couldn’t make himself do it.

Instead, he turned his face toward Altair’s, looked at his reddened-face and the open sprawl of his mouth (at the pinkness of his lips) and how his eyes were darker in this room with such limited light. He watched the urgency gather in Altair’s face the way it moved through his whole body. Then Altair’s hand covered his eyes. 

“Malik,” Altair said again. 

His orgasm, when it happened, was as much a shock as getting slapped in the face might have been. It felt as it had been taken from him as Altair hissed out a noise between his wet teeth and Malik’s fingernails broke the slick skin of his back. The world was still a swimming-confusing-disaster of sensations when Malik pulled Altair’s hand off his face and looked at him. “Why did you stop?”

“You finished,” Altair said. He moved to pull away and Malik caught him by the hip and pulled him back. “Malik,” Altair said. 

Malik laid back and used the grip he had on Altair’s hand to urge him to move (with less violence than before) and Altair (with a sigh) obliged him. After a moment, he took over managing the rhythm on his own and Malik gripped his hand around Altair’s dick and stroked it in time with the motion of his hips. Altair’s eyes closed and he pressed his hand against Malik’s chest (as if reassuring himself Malik was still suitably restrained). His orgasm was not a shock but something of a revelation—obviously surprising to Altair himself—something that seemed entirely too private for Malik to be invited to witness. 

After, they washed and dressed and went to their bed.

\--

Long after dark, some undetermined time before daylight again, Altair’s voice startled him out of a light sleep. “Why do you want me in your bed?” The tone of his voice betrayed his long sleeplessness and his confusion but not his intent in asking.

“I don’t like being alone,” Malik said. He was not awake enough to deliberate the multi-meanings of the question or think of the best version of the same answer. “I like knowing you are there.”

“That _I_ am here or that another person is here?” Altair moved and the motion rattled the sword between them. “Does it matter so much who the person is? Could any person satisfy your need?”

Malik forced his eyes to open, rolled onto his side and tried to make out Altair’s body in the dimness. His tongue was a barely damp drag across his dry lips. “I enjoy touching other people and having them close to me. It does not always matter which person it is but I prefer a person that I know well or one that I love.”

Altair made an assessing noise in the dark. “I don’t like being touched. I don’t like knowing I’m unsafe when I sleep.”

There was much that Malik could have said on that subject. He could have debated it until the end of time, could have protested that Altair was safer here with him than anywhere else. He might even have defended himself against the half-thought accusation in those words. But he said, “I’m sorry.”

Altair said nothing for many minutes and when he finally did speak he only said, “thank you,” then, “sleep, Malik. We still have much left to do.”


	22. Chapter 22

Altair did not sleep through Malik waking to attend to his duties of the day. He had woken up when the man rose and watched him fumble his clothing on and go. Then Altair had gone back to sleep. By the time he woke up again, it was well past mid-day and he was nauseous with hunger. 

It might have been the inviting smell of a meal that woke him because it suffused the entirety of the interior rooms (perhaps even the whole bureau). It called him away from his bed while lingering exhaustion kept him there. He was still half-dressed with the memory of the night before layered over his skin like a shadow. Impulse had been in control of his actions when he pushed Malik to the ground and climbed on top of him. There had been no logical reason he should have done anything of the sort (but several reasons why he should not have) and yet he could not move himself to regret the choice. 

The sex was not the most pressing of his worries but the way that Malik had looked at him. The way (for the first time ever) the insult lust that the man held for Altair’s body had softened and _brightened_ into something like a fire. (Perhaps it was that, for the first time, Altair had enjoyed _it_ outside of the insanity of a fever.) 

Cowardice was abrasive against Altair’s sense of peace so he pushed himself up and got dressed. He went out through the door and found Malik bent over his maps with a noticeable wince of pain caught at the edge of his lips and in between his eyebrows. There was a dish of food near the swinging door at the end of the counter that Altair assumed (hoped) was meant for him. But it was the uncertainty of how he should proceed that kept him standing not even two full feet from where they’d had sex. 

Malik spared Altair the effort of having to break the silence. He looked sideways at him once he’d finished the portion of the map he was working on. The wince that had before been at contained pain flinched across his face. He rubbed a sore spot on his back. “I began communicating with the Rafiqs of the other nearby bureaus many months ago. They appear to trust me as they have begun sending me word of their troubles and what is happening in their bureau.”

“That is useful,” Altair said.

The words must have seemed as ridiculous to Malik as they did to Altair that had spoken them. Nonetheless, Malik pressed on. “Abu’l Nuqoud is in Damascus. He has just been named a target by—” The pause there seemed indecisive. “Rashid.” The use of Al Mualim’s name was as much a sign betrayal from Malik as the plot to kill him was; perhaps more so when spoken with such venom. 

“Have you sent word of our success to him?” Altair asked.

Malik nodded. He looked at the food and then at Altair and motioned from one to the other. “That is for you.” Then, “are you going out to your novices?”

Yes, he needed to go and see them. Altair moved up to the counter and picked up the dish to examine the food more closely. “Yes.”

“When you return, we must discuss our next move.” Then Malik (obviously feeling that everything that was necessary to say had been said) stretched and turned back to look at his progress on the map. 

\--

It was too late in the day to meet Aaron. Peninah did not come to see him for another two days. Dinah was not where he usually met her but Altair found Mary walking aimlessly back and forth in the street. Her dress was stained (with the blood that had been unsuccessfully washed out of it) and her head was bare to show the full extent of the damage done to her scalp.

“You found the man that you were searching for?” Mary said when he sat on a bench along her path. She turned to face him but did not sit at his side. 

“I did,” Altair said.

A passing cluster of guards laughed among themselves when they caught sight of Mary and talked among themselves about how the quality of whores had become suddenly poor. Another agreeably reminded the first that anything less attractive could be covered. Mary stared after them as they went and the unwavering deadness of her stare went unnoticed or the challenge would have been met with bloody retribution.

When Mary turned back to look at him she said, “does your husband know?”

There was little at this time that Malik did not know about him. Altair couldn’t guess from her face what she meant but he could divine from the hurt and hatred seemed to have emptied her out of anything human. “Yes,” Altair said.

“He allows you to seek your revenge?”

“Yes.”

Mary stepped forward and the space between them grew so slim Altair had to lean back and found his back against a wall. Her slim, bony body was hardly a threat but he felt ill at ease none-the-less. “Does it help? Killing these men, does it give you peace?” Then she slid her bone-thin finger in between the slight gap between his skin and his clothes and pulled the neckline out away as she looked down. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Altair said. But there was no reason to think there was anything that could give Mary a sense of peace. There was nothing left in her to save. He brought his hand up and flattened his clothes back down. “Do not give up, Mary.”

When she looked back up at his face her eyes were dark (and empty) with the usual circles of blackness bruising up purple and blue all beneath them. Her lips twitched faintly. “Do you think you can find happiness with a husband, Altair? Is that why you have kept his child?”

Altair stood up and Mary scuttled backward to avoid the perception of his anger. While they were equals (both omegas, both wounded, both _victims_ and aggressors in their own ways), Altair was much larger and physically reminiscent of men. His hand was still pressed against his own chest, the tips of his fingers bumping across his collarbone as he tried to imagine how she’d come to that conclusion. 

“I’ve been pregnant many times,” Mary said. “None survived. Peninah told me she suspected it. Why shouldn’t it be true? You are young, healthy, and _married_.”

“I owe my husband a debt,” Altair said.

Mary regarded this information and then stepped to the side. “Then guard yourself more closely than you have in the past. Our bodies are poor shells to protect such precious burdens.” She turned around and left him without bothering to offering a parting word. 

\--

Altair found Peninah after some searching. She was walking back from the market with her purchases clutched close at her side. He fell into step next to her and she elbowed him hard in the ribs before she saw who he was. 

“You scared me!” she scolded.

Altair pushed her closer to a building where they could talk without being trampled by the ongoing foot traffic. “What evidence do you have that I am pregnant?” he demanded.

Peninah’s face blanched white in a strange fear as she licked her lips and then looked pointedly at his chest. “Your nipples have gotten dark,” she said. “I have seen it happen to others. I didn’t mean to offend you.” When she sensed that he wasn’t angry she relaxed a bit, “is this your first time?”

“No,” he rubbed at his chest through his shirt. “Is there any way to be sure?”

“So early? No. How did you know that you were pregnant the times before?” Peninah asked. She shifted her hold on the few things she’d bought and Altair scowled at the notion of purposefully going looking for something that would make him vomit. He let out a breath through his nose.

“Safety and peace,” he said to her before he left.

\--

It was not such a difficult task to find dates even as late in the evening as it was. All he needed to do was walk toward the sickening smell of them. The difficulty was that once he started vomiting his stomach simply would not settle again. It clenched like a fist, contracting as he tried to get back to the bureau without attracting the notice of guards.

\--

Malik was doing push-ups in the outer room when Altair finally successfully made it back to the bureau. He sat back on his knees when Altair dropped in through the grate and then closed it. His face was wrinkled up with obvious distaste at the smell that was still lingering around Altair. It was obvious that he was about to say something embarrassing or possibly infuriating.

“Don’t,” Altair said in place of allowing Malik to create a problem neither of them could resolve. “Have you heard from the mentor?”

“It has not even been a full day,” Malik said.

Yes, but this matter seemed to be of some significance to Rashid. Altair off the foul clothes that had the lingering stench of vomit on them, dropped them by the fountain and then crouched down to scoop the water on to his hair and the back of his neck. He rinsed the taste out of his mouth and then turned to face Malik. It should not have been so difficult to tell him.

They were simple words. Perhaps far simpler than many of the words that had passed between them before. And yet, Altair’s teeth were stuck together and his jaw was too tight to unhinge.

Malik seemed to have decided not to ask about his obvious discomfort. Instead he said, “Majd Addin is not our concern. If Rashid sends another child to kill him we will intervene but until such time I do not believe it is worth our notice. I believe our next target should be Abu’l.”

Altair nodded. “How can we get to him?”

Here, Malik sighed. “ _We_ cannot. It is as you said. I cannot betray the brotherhood. I cannot leave my post. _You_ have to go to Damascus, find this man, discover what he knows and kill him.”

And all without being caught by assassins or civilians. Altair nodded again and could not sort out what he felt (besides nauseated). “I agree.”

\--&\--

Not so long ago (less than a year, if such a thing were believable) any man could have told Malik that omegas were fickle naturally. Their affection was given and withheld based on their changeable whims and that any good husband had the responsibility to train his omega wife into a stable calmness.

The thought came to him again as he tolerated Altair’s persistent attempts to ignore him. 

The first day, Malik thought that it must have been because they had sex (more specifically because Altair had initiated it). Or perhaps he had been offended by Malik’s answer to his question (or confused, that was also possible). 

By the evening, he thought it might have had something to do with finding a new target and knowing the location of him. Perhaps the feeling of being trapped and unable to pursue further justice had soured Altair’s mood.

By bedtime, Malik had no idea why Altair was upset. The space between them seemed too wide to span. He gave Altair the silence he seemed to ask for.

\--

The second day, Altair made food and left the same as he had what felt like months ago now. His silence left a grayness over the bureau that could hardly stand to contain the unhappiness already stuck inside of its walls. 

Malik found Robert’s journal and sat to read it while he waited for messages to reach him. He was expecting no travelers that day and had little reason to think Nidal or the other informants would visit him. He meant to read the journal and found himself trying to reason out why Altair was avoiding him. 

\--

The greater trouble, as he discovered during the slow hours of the barely-passing morning, was that Malik’s faith in Altair was not without doubt. The task that was assigned to Altair (by necessity, not choice) was one that had not been asked of any Assassin he knew of. To infiltrate, identify, assassinate and escape without notice or help seemed a nearly impossible task on its own. 

Malik did _not_ want to doubt Altair; but the dread existed in his gut regardless.

\--

Rashid sent him a message that said:

_I applaud your success. Your skills as an assassin have always be admirable and I see that injury and time have not diminish them. I am also impressed with your ability to identify and utilize assets. I am curious as you deemed him able to assist you personally if you feel Altair is now ready to return to helping all of the Brotherhood._

It had always been a matter of time before Rashid asked. Malik had imagined his reaction when it happened. He could not have imagined the iciness that filled his chest. He could not have imagined the cross between possessiveness and protectiveness that tangled up in a confusing mess. Ultimately, both ended the same. Malik would _not_ send Altair back.

He only needed to find a way to say as much.

\--

Altair came back scowling. It was only afternoon (early for Altair to return).

“It is good that you’ve returned,” Malik said before Altair could go to hide in the inner room. He stopped at the sound of Malik speaking—a foot from the counter—and turned his attention to him. The scowl on his face did not slacken at all. “I have received a message from Rashid. He asks if feel you are ready to return to Masyaf.”

Altair sneered, “tell him you will not send me while I am pregnant.” Then he went into the interior rooms without another word or any indication that what he said was the truth or merely a ruse to distract Rashid from his goal. 

Malik was still a moment and then up on his feet and following after Altair. He found him in the interior room shirtless and crouching against a far wall. His sword was balanced across his knees with both of his hands gripped around the scabbard. “Are you?” But what slim words to ask such a monumental question.

“Yes.” Altair sounded neither pleased nor displeased to say as much. 

“Will Rashid believe us?”

At this Altair looked away from the sword and up at him. “Will he believe that I am pregnant? Yes. I am _easily bred_. You would not even have to regale him with the tale of how you managed the feat. He’ll be _pleased_ to know that you were able to dominant me in such a manner. Will he believe that you would not return me until I have birthed your son? Yes. If you knew nothing, you would still refuse to return me.”

Malik knew it was true. “It will provide us with cover as we pursue our mission.” He let out a breath and then motioned back out toward the other room. “I have to respond to his request.”

Altair did not acknowledge him.

 

\--

Malik stood alone at the counter trying to figure out how the man he used to be would have phrased the denial of his mentor’s wishes. He thought that whoever he had been would have been a confusion of embarrassment to be disloyal and iron will to not give what was rightfully his. The sour, spiteful thing that he had been in the wake of his brother’s death would have been proud that he was able to use Altair so thoroughly that he was pregnant. Those things he would have felt would have filled his head and his words. 

He wrote:   
_Currently, I cannot allow Altair to return to Masyaf. He is carrying my child._

\--

Malik slept in the outer room under the stars with the full stench of the city breezing in through the grate over his head. Altair did not come looking for him while he was still awake and there was no reason to think that he’d miss him when he didn’t go to bed.

Yet, Malik woke to the sound of feet scuffing across the ground and the gentle shush of Altair dropping to sit at his side. He looked exhausted, with darkness around his eyes and defeat hanging on his shoulders. The man had confessed the entirety of his history to Malik without defeat and had stood against the countless loud shouts and crude sneers of his peers without wilting. 

“You don’t have to keep the child,” Malik said. “There is no reason to think it would survive our mission.”

“You are stupid,” Altair said to him. But he did not say it with venom. He laid down at Malik’s side and shifted until he found a comfortable place to be. His sword was absent but he had a small dagger that he set in the space between them. (Malik wasn’t sure if he should be pleased to be downgraded as a threat or insulted to be thought so little of.) “I will not kill your child. Sleep.”

One day, perhaps, when they were not still at such odds, Malik could explain to Altair how one could not simply be ordered into sleep. For now he drew in a breath and caught the familiar scent, feel and sound of Altair at his side, and let it out again before closing his eyes. 

“Our bed is more comfortable,” Altair said when his eyes were closed.

\--

The next morning, Altair was recovered enough to make food and sit with Malik while they ate. He did not speak of the night before or of the blackness that had followed him around for days before it. 

“I will need to leave for Damascus soon,” Altair said. “Undoubtedly, Rashid will send someone to assassinate Majd Addin. He will know if I am not here when that happens. We either must wait until this happens or we must try to move quickly before it happens.”

Malik finished chewing what was in his mouth and then took a drink of cool water. “We do not have the luxury of time. We must find out what this _apple_ does.”

“We must have evidence to back our claim that Rashid has turned against the brotherhood.” But even as he said it, some aggravation came to Altair’s face and he snarled out a breath. “Haydar said I should make an ally out of you, that men would go where you led them. Perhaps you should tell Nidal the truth of his mentor.”

No, it was too soon for such rash moves. Nidal might believe him but the knowledge would not help him with his already rampant anxiety. Malik did not disregard the suggestion though. “When it is time. We have all the evidence we need to prove his betrayal. We need to know what weapon he possesses.”

“So I will go as soon as I have gathered my supplies,” Altair said. “I will find Abu’l in Damascus and then return to you.” He sat back away from the table and looked embarrassed as he said, “I will do what I can to protect your child. You should not worry about it.”

That was just stupid (but _why_ was it stupid? Why wasn’t it gratifying to know Altair considered it important to protect _his_ child?). “Protect yourself,” Malik said firmly. “The child isn’t much without it’s mother and I—” But he could not figure out what he meant to say there. “Still need you.”

Altair only nodded. “I will go prepare to leave.”

\--

Malik was already angry before Altair re-emerged dressed for travelling. He could not wear the robes of an assassin and did not wear the armor of one. His whole body was vulnerable to stabs and cuts of the many unknown threats he would find along the way. Just the sight of him, stripped to nothing but a civilian’s clothes twisted in Malik’s chest. 

“Be careful,” Malik said to him. “ _Protect yourself_. Do you have the hidden blade?”

Altair flexed his left hand to the side and the blade sprang free and then slid back out of sight. His tongue peeked out pink and unsure across his wide lips and he shifted his weight noticeably from one foot to another. “Malik,” he said. “I have been unfair to you.”

“How?” Malik demanded.

“I have thought the worst of you. I have belittled you. I have mocked you even after you tried to make amends for the wrongs you thought you had committed. You have proven yourself capable of change and compassion even when I’ve done little to deserve it. I have not,” Altair said. He swallowed before he spoke again. “I am sorry for what I’ve taken from you. I am sorry that my arrogance killed Kadar. I am sorry that I was not able to save him or to fight at your side so that you would not have lost your arm. All this I should have said to you—as many times as it took to convince you of the sincerity of my words. And I have not. I have punished you for the crimes I named you guilty of and ignored my own. I am _sorry_ for what I’ve taken from you.”

“No,” Malik said. The reaction was so compulsory that he did not even realize he moved to say it before he had. And his motioned out into the air next to them, at the wall or at the floating words of Altair’s apology. 

“No?” Altair repeated.

“You will not apologize to me like a man who is on his way to his death. I do not want your apology. I want the head of the man that betrayed us.” Malik was _furious_ and it agitated through his body until he found his hands coiling up into a fist. He thought that he could have hit Altair for the look of half-understanding on his face and the way his cheeks flushed with color. “Return to me,” Malik said. “That will be proof that you are truly sorry.”

Altair nodded and the slightest touch of a smile pulled at the edge of his mouth before he flattened it again. “I will return, Malik. Safety and peace.”

“Safety and peace,” Malik said. But the words did not seem big enough and the things left unsaid seemed too many as Altair turned and walked away from him. Malik was still behind his counter, trapped in place as the loyal servant of a corrupt master, as Altair pulled himself up-and-out. “Come back,” Malik said to his retreating shadow (one more time) and then distracted himself with the work he’d neglected.


	23. Chapter 23

Malik’s (unspoken, half-expressed) worry followed Altair out of the city. It nagged him as he found a horse worth stealing and settled in his gut as he trotted away from the scene of his crime. Altair was _offended_ by the implication that he wasn’t capable of handling this mission at the same time it was some undefinable _other thing_. It was the other thing that Altair could not work out. It felt quite a bit like the now familiar sound of Malik’s body taking up space next to his in the dark and the long-lost memory of Abbas as his _friend_ (and not his enemy). 

\--

Of course, the greater problem was the significance of this mission. Rashid undoubtedly had more information than was wise to give a man that had no qualms with betraying those that trusted and loved him. It had been the old man’s idea to kill the first child and Altair (ignorant at seventeen) had agreed with no thoughts except an immediate, _stupid_ , fear. There was no reason to keep the child, and no reason to mourn the life when it was ripped out of his body. It had been unwanted since its conception much like the one that he had aborted only a matter of months ago. And yet the existence of them, the bloody knowledge of their deaths, was stuck in his head.

Altair would not allow Malik’s child to die the way the others had. Yet, he had given Rashid the knowledge of the child’s existence on the eve of their mission to kill the man. 

\--

The most pressing of his problems wasn’t the tangle of things he could not work out or the worry that nagged him as he kicked his horse into a fast gallop. More importantly was the lacking endurance of his body. Whether it was neglect on his part to maintain himself or the effects of this pregnancy, but he was a mass of nerve endings pulsing in objection if not outright pain. Altair had to stop for the first time only a few hours after he began. 

It was the space between villages, along the side of the road where he could walk and pull the horse along after him. The slowness of his moving legs and arms was a needed balm against the aggravated soreness of being jostled on horseback. But the slowness provided him no respite from the things he could not stop thinking.

\--

Altair remembered the men that had come to see him at seventeen. Garnier with his delicate-bald-head and the blood lust that dug the sharp edge of his thumbnails into the skin of Altair’s back. Al Mualim’s (a trusted mentor then) words echoed through his head even in the throes of the fever and Altair had shoved the man away from him whenever he tried to draw blood.

The other man, the massive man with skin that was dimpled and misshapen as the uneven ground he was crossing on his way to Damascus had smelled sweetly and smiled smugly at him. His hands had been soft-feather-touches against Altair whenever he had his turn. But his weight was massive against him. They had not used names but spoke to one another over his head with brash and abrasive reassurances of their mutual vitality. In practice, they were different as night-and-day. Garnier had been violent, intentionally and maliciously inflicting pain whenever he could manage it. The other had considered himself a kinder lover but his unwanted affection was as difficult to ignore and forget.

\--

Nausea was a secondary problem. It only became unbearable when it became clear that ignoring it would not cause the problem to solve itself. Altair had to stop riding to eat. He was close enough to a village to let the horse go with the relative certainty that he could steal or find another. He walked the distance between where he left the horse and where he was likely to find another. 

He vomited everything he’d eaten even as his stomach announced its intolerable hunger. Exhausted, confused and feeling generally foul, he searched the small village for a widow to spend the night with. There was usually one or an old woman. The best he found was a young wife and a thin-and-unimpressive husband who agreed to feed him and allow him to sleep in their home for a small sum. 

\--

Sleep came slow and was brief. He woke up again-and-again with a start at the unfamiliar cadence of these unknown bodies breathing. His hand flexed around the sword at his side and his heart (beating too hard) slowed again. 

(Until the next time…)

\--

The next day he redoubled his effort. The young wife sent him away with a bag of supplies that she assured him would assist him in his journey (she as all omegas, had some secret knowledge of him). It seemed to be filled with various foods that were easy to eat while he was riding onward toward Damascus. He ate them to keep the hunger and nausea at bay and to distract himself from the thoughts that nagged at his back.

\--

Damascus was not an unfamiliar city to him but he was still a stranger inside of it. His clothes marked him as an omega but his weapons (smuggled in a single burden apparently no more remarkable than any other package) made him a threat. His body turned to take him to the bureau in the city and by the time he realized what direction he was going, he was simply too tired to feel much more than bone-deep anger at himself for being stupid.

He corrected his course to take him toward the women that sold their bodies for a living. He had learned (from Mary) that they were usually willing to take in a traveler for the night so long as the money was good. He found a cluster of them with skin marked and split by rough handling and haggled a decent price for the night.

\--

In the morning, he thanked the ladies that housed him and sought out food from the souk. He walked the city listening to the talk of its people who were full of comments on the war and the merchant king Abu’l Nuqoud’s impending party. 

They mocked the merchant king with open hatred. Altair followed their voices through the city until he found the man’s large mansion in the rich district. It was a well-guarded citadel in comparison to many of the places Altair had been assigned to infiltrate. He spent a day walking in circles around it, picking out the easiest path across the roofs of the city in case it was necessary to use them to approach or escape. 

At the end of the night, he sought out a separate home to stay in, with a different set of prostitutes. 

“Are you going to cause trouble?” one of the women asked when they saw his weapons. “We have enough trouble.”

“My trouble will not follow you here,” he assured her. And while his word was good enough to ease her into sleep but Altair could not force himself to sleep. He lay in the dark of the little building filled with women exhausted by their day’s work and thought of what Malik must be doing. 

Malik’s worry (the very idea that somewhere, Malik cared that he returned at all) lulled him to sleep.

\--

In the morning, Altair changed his clothing to that more commonly associated with true men. It would provide him at least passing cover as he went through the streets. His walk (as he had been often told) damned him as a man. The attention drawn to his hips seemed to alert every other person that he was an omega regardless of his intentions. He carried his weapons openly as he went out into the city. 

Preparations for Abu’l Nuqoud’s party kept the area around his mansion busy. The guards were in a state of constant alertness checking every man who entered the home to be sure of their purpose. Altair slipped in with a long line of men carrying a series of crates. He offered a steadying hand to the last man in the line that looked as if he were overburdened. This act of kindness bought him admittance but the man looked at him strangely once they were inside the walls. 

“They will kill you if they find you,” he said.

“Do not tell anyone you have seen me,” Altair said in response, “he’ll be furious if he knows I’ve been seen.”

This man, like most in the city, was content to think the worst of Abu’l. He sneered in disgust at Altair and stepped pointedly away from him. The revulsion he felt for the man he perceived Altair was an obvious ugliness on his face. So he turned with quick steps and left Altair standing alone in the middle of many moving bodies.

Altair went up, searching through the busy halls for the sound of a familiar voice or the sight of some familiar body. From what he’d heard of Abu’l in the street he was most likely the man who had accompanied Garnier. The massive set of his body would be undoubtedly easy to find among a sea of smaller ones. 

“Why are you here?” a guard demanded around a corner. He was alone but _loud_ and Altair reacted immediately. He stabbed him in the throat with the hidden blade and caught his body before it could hit the ground. It landed softly against the floor, spreading a sticky red puddle of blood. Altair retreated around a corner and waited to see if someone would come investigate. 

He was discovered by a guard coming from the opposite direction. “What are you doing here?” the guard demanded and not even a full six steps behind him, the massive man himself was coming to a slow stop. His grotesque face was a mask of rage, a constant aggressive hatred for everyone that was beneath him. But his lips—slippery and wet—drew up in a smile the sort of which one might give to an old friend. 

“I asked him to come,” Abu’l said. He came forward on delicate-feet and slid his arm around Altair’s shoulders. The fine cloth of his robe was abrasive against Altair where their bodies were in contact with one another. “Come,” he said, “let us go somewhere more private.” His soft hands were pressing sweet touches across Altair’s neck as he turned their bodies. “Oh,” he said when he saw the dead guard, “he seems to have stabbed himself.”

Altair went where he was led because his death was certain if he resisted. They were behind closed doors before Abu’l released him. “I am no fool. I know your Master has sent you.”

“He has not,” Altair said back. “I come for my own reasons.”

“You have come to kill me,” Abu’l said. He waved his hand in the air as if the idea did nothing to offend him. “You will have to wait in line. There are many that would love to see me dead. Many that would prefer my death to my continued life offending them.” He eyed Altair. “But you could do it, yes? Garnier and Rashid had a great debate about how to make the best use of you. I heard that there were others—Garnier always spoke of how much he enjoyed you. I prefer a man.”

“Tell me what weapon Rashid possesses and I will spare you a painful death,” Altair said. His skin was crawling from being locked in the same room as the foul man. The sweet odor of his clothing and his body turned his stomach. 

“Are you not the weapon Rashid possesses?” Abu’l asked. “You are his prize. He has lauded you as his finest success since you were still a child. When I heard that Talal had died, I thought of you. Did you kill Talal?”

“I did,” Altair said. “I killed Garnier. I did not kill Tamir. Tell me of the apple.”

Abu’l waved his hand again. “Garnier did not care for me. I offended him. All these men,” Abu’l contorted his face in an awful sneer, “they think they are better than me. They call me an abomination. Can you imagine?”

Altair drew his sword. The man seemed to be ignorant of the danger he was in or unconcerned. He looked at the sword in Altair’s hand and seemed _bored_ by it. He found a sword of his own and held it out before him. “If you will not tell me, there is no use for you.” 

Abu’l laughed. “It will take more than such a small _omega_ to defeat me. I will amuse myself with you for a while, perhaps.” Then he beckoned Altair forward. 

\--&\--

Malik’s bed was cold without Altair next to him. His morning was bleak knowing that his only ally was out (alone) and set to a task that seemed nearly impossible to complete. The tasks that were assigned him by his station seemed frivolous in comparison to the knowledge that he served a betrayer.

\--

Exercise had never bought Malik the peace of mind that it offered Altair but it helped to quell the nervous twitch of energy that followed him around the bureau. It had been hours-and-hours of the day with little distraction and all that time had needled him with the possibility of defeat.

Altair was an omega citizen sent out (while pregnant) into a world with nobody he could trust or rely on to defeat an enemy that had wounded him so thoroughly the scars might never cease to bother him. The aftermath of Talal’s death had been a long drag of dread and anxiety that exploded with a flurry of words and denials. 

After Garnier’s death, Altair had been a storm of many things but most vividly an impatient force demanding things he swore he’d never want.

Abu’l Nuqoud would undoubtedly provoke some reaction from Altair and he was left to deal with it _alone_. Whatever impatience or hurt drove his actions in the aftermath of that man’s death would put Altair in the greatest danger and there would be nobody—

(But Malik flattered himself didn’t he, as he skirted around the edge of the idea that he could do _anything_ for Altair other than provide him a convenient ally and a compliant accomplice. That Malik were capable of offering comfort and that Altair would be willing to accept it from him.)

\--

At night, it was the apology that haunted him. Altair’s face and his words. Malik pulled them apart and put them together again. 

He sat in his empty bed with his right hand rubbing at the untouchable phantom ache in his left arm. The whole of fight in Solomon’s Temple played in his head again-and-again, starting at the mouth of the tunnel that led them to Robert when Malik’s anger and resentment insulted Altair’s methods and intentions and ending with the shocked-white-sound Kadar made when the blade sank into his thigh. 

It should have been gratifying to know that Altair was capable of guilt. It was what he had wanted for weeks. It was what he felt he was owed. It was the revenge he had tried to pull from the man’s unwilling body. Now he had those words and the truth of Altair’s remorse and regret. 

There was no comfort to be had in those words. (As there was no body to warm the space next to him.)

\--

It was the third day when he received a response from Rashid:

_My congratulations on the happy news. Perhaps after the child is weaned, if Altair is still able, he could return to our ranks as a trainer. His skill would benefit the novices. As Altair will not be able to assist you in any mission, I am sending Abbas with orders to track and eliminate Majd Addin._

Malik hated Rashid so deeply it was like blood in his mouth but the sensation lasted only long enough for him to realize he was without a wife and a foul enemy was coming. Long enough for his sluggish head to stumble upon the idea that Abbas’ assignment to this task was (most likely) far from a coincidence. The old man’s anger at being denied would be felt and what better way to punish (Malik and) Altair for the slight than to send the one man that delighted in humiliating Altair more than Malik himself.

Malik thought _I will part your head from your shoulders myself_ and the thought offered him some sense of peace that nothing else could manage.

\--

Nidal came on the fourth day with curious-soft-steps and a cautious look back toward the inner rooms. “I have heard nothing of your wife these days, Rafiq.”

“He is well,” Malik said. “What news?”

“Majd is preparing some manner of demonstration. He has been ordering his guards to pluck any man that offends them from the streets. Some of my men believe he is going to execute them all for sport. Their crimes are minor but their deaths would quiet the murmur of rebellion that goes through our city.” Nidal looked robbed of security the way Malik felt. These walls around them should have been a steadying force. They should find safety in one another and yet they were two strangers (separated by knowledge) that could find nothing to soothe their fear.

Malik could not give Nidal the truth. “Abbas is coming,” is what he said in its place. “Be wary of him.”

Nidal’s dislike of Abbas was a nearly violent creaking of muscle-and-bone as his hands clenched at his sides. The cloth that covered half his face twitched as he frowned behind it and his eyebrows pulled in tight. “What purpose does Abbas have in our city?”

“He is being sent to assassinate Majd Addin,” Malik said. 

“It is strange the men that you and your wife bother to kill and the ones that you allow others to assassinate,” the tone was not accusatory but inquisitive. Nidal did not wait for an answer but step back as if he meant to leave. “If I hear any news of Majd Addin’s precise whereabouts I will report to you.”

“Thank you,” Malik said. “Safety and peace, brother.”

“Safety and peace,” Nidal said before he left.

\--

In the afternoon, Malik thought of what he could offer as an excuse to Abbas if he arrived before Altair. The journey from Masyaf was longer than the one from Damascus but Abbas could have left even before Rashid sent the message. Abbas could ride fast with great urgency (not likely). Altair could be delayed by injury, illness or obstacles to completing his mission.

He could not make the preposterous claim that Altair had gone to visit with friends. Abbas (of all people) would be the first to claim Altair was incapable of making or maintaining friendships. Altair had no family and he would have no reason to leave Malik’s side at all. 

Altair was _pregnant_ and in absence of any other family there was nowhere he should be but at Malik’s side. Else the truth they offered to excuse themselves from duty became a lie. 

\--

But at night, a fouler thought robbed him of proper sleep. Abbas was one of the least honorable men in their brotherhood. He was foul and unlikeable. If there were any man that Rashid could send to relieve Altair of his _problem_ it would be Abbas. 

Malik had not lied when he told Altair he did not care about the child if he could not have the child’s Mother as well but the _thought_ of any man purposefully trying to kill (their) child made his skin tighten with a cold chill that not even the persistent heat of the dawn could ease.

\--

It was nearly a week before Malik’s bureau was invaded by a thin-boned-boy with thick brown hair and innocent-eyes. He fell through the grate and landed on his knees and hands in the outer room. His clothes marked him a civilian (his uninspiring lack of skill did as well). But he got on his feet and dusted off the impact as if it were hardly worth noting. 

“Ah, perhaps you are his husband,” the boy said. He came through the doorway that separated them and looked at the gloomy shadows of the room with his eyebrows arched up in undisguised confusion. “What is this place?” Then he looked at Malik and the dagger he’d put on the counter. His face blanched white as he turned his body at an angle that allowed him to watch Malik and offered him some chance at escape. “I trailed Altair here one day. He always refused to tell me where he lived. I have often seen him hiding in the garden on the building across from this one. Then I finally saw him come here. He has not shown himself for many days and the others said he was upset to learn he was pregnant.”

What a trivial worry to have. “You should not have come,” Malik said.

“Are you his husband?” the boy said again.

“Are you his novice?” Malik asked.

“I am Aaron.” A boy omega and going by the various marks on his face and lower arms one that was either prone to accidents or bound to an unhappy life. “Are you his husband?” but a tenacious one.

“I am,” Malik said. “He is well. When he returns I will send him to you. It is not safe for you here, if there had been others they would not have liked your uninvited intrusion.” He tucked the dagger away again and went to the end of the counter. Aaron was unnerved by his movement and skittish when Malik came through the swinging door to look at him more closely. The mark on his jaw was almost certainly the imprint of a thumb mirrored by a series of pinked pressure marks on the opposite side. If Malik put his hand up to the boy’s face he could have spread his fingers across those marks perfectly. “Who does this to you?”

“I fall,” Aaron said defiantly.

“Hm,” Malik said. “My wife trains a liar. He must train you very poorly if he’s taught you to stand and allow these things to happen to you.”

“Life has trained me to stand and allow it,” Aaron said with no shame and no fear. “Your wife trains me to fight when I can. This,” he motioned at his own face, “is not a fight that I can win. Did you train your wife?”

“I can tell you nothing,” Malik said. And (yet), he said, “Altair would fight for you. Perhaps you should ask him.” The flinch on the boy’s face was shame and then dismissal. He did not even manage to speak before Malik interrupted his thoughts. “He would not want this.”

Aaron said nothing on the matter but turned back to look at the grate, “how do I get out?”

Malik only sighed.

\--

It was a week and three days before Altair returned to him. He came in the morning, burdened with dark spaces beneath his eyes and an exhaustion that dragged his gait off balance. His arms were sagging at his side as he inexpertly dropped his weapons on Malik’s side of the counter. There was a poorly tended wound on his forearm that was scabbed over and reddened with irritation. Altair smelled like horse and vomit. 

“He is dead,” Altair said. His voice was hollowed. “What news in Jerusalem?”

Malik opened his mouth to tell him, to explain how Abbas was coming and his purpose was supposedly to assassinate Majd Addin but there was no reason not to think that he had a far more despicable reason. Instead he said, “you look awful.”

Altair made a sound that was almost a laugh. 

“Go in and rest,” Malik said, “I will bring you food. When you do not look on the verge of death we will tend your wound,” there only seemed to be one of them, “and maybe wash away the foul smell.” 

Altair nodded and went without protest.

\--

Malik went to their bed with his meager offering of food and found Altair sleeping with the sword behind him and his arm stretched out across Malik’s part of the bed. (And again, the thought came, about how Malik would separate Rashid’s head from his shoulders for his crimes.) Malik set the food a safe distance from Altair’s flailing limbs (he always woke suddenly from deep sleep) and went back to his place in the front.


	24. Chapter 24

Altair woke up briefly to eat when the smell of food dragged him out of the interminable darkness of unconsciousness. He fell asleep again in the immediate aftermath and was only roused by the many unhappy aches of his body. Most severe (for a nice change of pace) was the pain originating from the slash across his forearm. The skin around it was red and welted, most likely from infection. He had done a poor job cleaning it in the immediate aftermath and failed to keep it clean on the long ride home.

The pain (and the consequences of leaving a wound untended) drove him out of the comfort of his bed and out of the back rooms. It was late in the afternoon, perhaps even evening, judging by the light lazily slanting into the outer rooms of the bureau. Malik was seated on a stool with his head pillowed on his arm. The sound of his light sleeping was an audible drag of breath through his open mouth. Altair looked at him for a moment, the dark bristle of his cheeks from too many days without shaving, the shadow of sleeplessness under his eyes and the ruffled-up hair on his head from scratching at his scalp when he grew frustrated. 

Malik’s worry had followed him out of this bureau, across the long miles that took him away from home and kept him company in unknown beds. Yet, it had clearly kept its place here as well. Altair turned to retreat back into the interior rooms, content to let Malik sleep if that was what he needed but the motion itself seemed to wake him. 

“You’re awake,” was what Malik said as he straightened up. He rubbed his hand against his mouth and was disgusted to find that he’d been sleeping with his mouth open and drooling a little puddle into his sleeve. (Who would not be?). He shrugged the Rafiq’s robe off and threw it over the counter as he stood up and stretched. “We should tend your wound.”

“I will gather the supplies,” Altair said.

\--

They sat out by the fountain where Altair could scrub the stink of travel off his skin and clothes. He was stripped to the waist, scrubbing the pus and blood out of the wound on his arm, teeth clenched around a strip of leather with many teeth marks already indented in it. When the wound was a bloody gash again, Malik washed it with vinegar and pulled at the edges of it to assess if it required stitches. 

“What happened?” Malik asked him when his fingers were pink with blood. The long shadows of the fading day intensified the black exhaustion that made his motions slow. 

“Nothing helpful,” Altair said. “He was amused by my attempt to kill him. He did not speak of the apple but repeatedly called _me_ Rashid’s greatest weapon.”

“Amused?” Malik repeated. He put the edge of a bandage against Altair’s arm and waited for Altair to hold it in place before setting to work wrapping it around his arm. It was pulled tight enough to close the wound and the trickle of leaking blood stained the bandage before it was even half done. 

“Yes,” Altair assured him. “He laughed at me while we fought.”

“Did he do this?” Malik asked.

“No. I was leaving when it was done and I landed on the ground in front of a madman, he knocked me into a woman who shouted at me that drew the attention of a guard. The guard saw the blood on my clothes and drew a weapon. I did not want to kill him but he was drawing too much attention. He managed to cut me.” Altair looked up from the wound to see Malik grinning in a disbelieving way. “It was not funny at the time.”

“It is not funny now,” Malik assured him but the grin would not leave his face. “You were born cursed, I think. It is the only explanation of how you have gathered such unnecessary wounds.” 

“Ha,” Altair said in agreement. Then, because the smile had still not faded from Malik’s face he said, “Your child is still safe.”

Those words were meant as a comfort and they slapped the smile away from Malik’s face instead. He finished the bandage by tying it (inexpertly with one hand and his teeth) and sat back away from him. The small collection of supplies was neatly stacked to the side before he said, “Abbas is coming.”

The implication of what Malik suspected his purpose was made Altair’s hands tighten into white-knuckled fists. “I thought the old man would try,” Altair said. “It haunted me while I was away from you. He is skilled in removing unwanted obstacles, and there are many ways to relieve me of my burden.”

Malik rubbed at the thick growth of a lazy-man’s beard on his face but did not look at him, so Altair reached out to put a hand on his face and pull his attention back to him. Fatigue had robbed Malik of rage and in its place cold dread festered. “It seems inevitable that Abbas is coming to test the truth of our words. If the old man doubts us, our lives are in greater danger than we suspected.”

“Rashid’s arrogance will protect him _and us_ ,” Altair said. “I will make you something to eat. Then we will sleep. Tomorrow we will decide what to do.”

\--

Malik woke before him in the morning and sat up on his side of the bed with his shirt off and the bandages he had worn over the long-since-healed wound on his left arm lying in a pile in his lap. The skin was paler there than on his shoulder and the skin seemed softer-and-more-fragile save for the long scar that ran like a pucker from one side to the other. Altair had not touched Malik (more than necessary, ever) on his left side when he could consciously avoid it. The man himself seemed to have bought peace with ignorance. Altair was not sure how I was possible to pretend not to have noticed but Malik managed it with sad precision.

Reaching out to touch the softened, pressure-wrinkled skin of Malik’s left arm was intentional, not instinctive. His hands felt too large, too coarse and too graceless. Malik jerked away instinctively and turned to look at him with a rabid-red-rage that made his shoulders tight and twisted his usual scowl into something violent. 

Altair pushed himself up onto his elbows and rolled onto his knees. He had not bothered to dress himself between washing the stink from his skin and bed so it was just a matter of slipping his pants off his legs as he inched forward on his knees before he was naked. Malik was sitting cross legged, his scowl transmuting into a confused look of lust. His hand was hovering at the side as Altair put himself into the man’s lap. 

The scarred ring of Altair’s teeth set into Malik’s shoulder was a prominent dark mark only visible when he was naked. But the knowledge of its existence and that Malik (like so many other men) thought it was a demeaning mark of ownership and passion had pleased him for many weeks. Altair spread his hand across it now and liked the way it was dimpled where his teeth had sunk in the deepest. 

(He liked knowing that he _owned_ Malik. Whatever that made him.)

“You don’t have to,” Malik said (compulsively, as if he had only just barely forced himself to manage it). His hand rested lightly against Altair’s side, his thumb pressed over a tender spot (his whole body was made of tender spots) as he looked at Altair’s chest (not his face). 

“Do you think I would do this if I did not want to?” Altair asked. But then, his whole life was made of such things. The choice had never been his. He had never been asked if he would like to be an assassin, he had never been asked if he wanted to be an omega, he had never been asked if he wanted men to hate and assault him. Rashid had made a mockery of asking when his words were clear commands. Altair had cupped his hand around the firm muscle of Malik’s left arm and said, “with you?”

Malik’s hand slid up the center of his back, the rough skin of his palm scratching as it pressed upward toward his shoulder. His mouth made a wet sound as it opened and he looked up at him. “If Abbas attempts to touch you, _kill him_.”

Altair nodded his understanding as he pulled the bandages out of Malik’s lap and pulled his cock free from his pants. Malik tipped his head against Altair’s chest with a groan as Altair held him in place and sank down on him. Altair’s hand slid into his hair and tightened, the old feeling of being suffocated by the closeness fighting against the half-denied _desire_. Malik’s breath on his skin was simultaneously unwanted and craved. The scruff on his cheeks was abrasive against Altair’s collarbone and chest. 

“When we are finished,” Altair said as he started moving (at last), “you must shave.”

Malik laughed and Altair’s hand in his hair tightened as he drove his hips down harder. Malik groaned and Altair closed his eyes and thought of nothing else but the strange-slick-heated-want.

\--

Malik shaved while Altair made them food. They met again out by the long counter and watched the grate for any sign of Abbas. 

“Your novice came to see you while you were away,” Malik said in between bites of food. The fatigue of the day before had lifted and in its place the rightful look of righteous anger had returned. “Someone is mistreating him.”

“Most likely his father. If he were married, he would not still be searching for me.” Altair finished his own meal and looked out toward the grate. “I cannot go see him now. It will have to wait until Abbas has come and gone.” More troubling than being caught in place was the expectations that Abbas would come with. “Assuming you had spent many months in the effort of teaching me my place as your wife, what would I do with my day?”

Malik scoffed. “I have spent many months in the effort of teaching you your place as my wife. The best I managed was to force you to clean and sleep in my bed. There should be enough proof that I have done the best I capable of doing in knowing that I impregnated you.”

“You do not think I should play the part of a properly cowed wife?” Altair said. “Wouldn’t it be safer to send Abbas back to his master with tales of how obedient I am to your whims?” 

“You may play whatever part you wish. I will follow your lead.” Then he turned his attention back to eating. 

\--&\--

An informant came after midday, hastened by worry and fear. He landed on creaking knees with a gust of painful breath and came running through the doorway to where Malik stood behind his counter. Altair was lying on his solitary bed above their heads, cleaning and hiding his weapons. 

“Nidal has been captured!” the informant said. “Majd Addin intends to hang him tomorrow!”

Altair was listening (still and _silent_ ) as the informant told the story of how Nidal had been out in the streets (doing nothing suspicious) and guards had overpowered him. He had been taken to a rank prison to await sentencing for a crime that was never specified. His wife and children were _terrified_ and hiding in the home of a fellow informant while they waited for word of Nidal’s fate.

“What is to be done?” the informant asked.

_Nothing_. Malik grimaced at the very thought. “Al Mualim has sent Abbas to assassinate Majd Addin. I will assign him to the task of saving Nidal as well. Have the other informants assemble at the execution tomorrow and be prepared to retrieve Nidal. When he is free, tell him to return to me.”

The man nodded and left in much the same hurry he arrived in. 

Altair said, “Abbas would not bother to save anyone.”

“I wouldn’t ask him to,” Malik said in return. “You will need to find clothing that is not torn, stained or otherwise unwearable.” But that was not enough. He thought of the open gash on Altair’s arm and of the obvious weakness that he carried low in his gut. “Perhaps you should use some of the armor in our store room.”

“It would be useful,” Altair agreed. He resumed cleaning his weapons.

\--

When Abbas came (at last) it was evening and Malik had put away all the trappings of his station. Altair had poured over the newest, most correct map of Jerusalem and plotted a course that would take him to the execution the fastest and easiest. They were sitting down to a meal when Abbas came with heavy-footsteps and a bawdy laugh. 

“At last, I get to see the assassins’ wife of Jerusalem! I have heard such stories of you, Altair. Things that I would not believe if I could not see them for myself. When Al Mualim sent me, I was pleased to have a chance to experience your humble hospitality.” Abbas was a disgusting mess of oily hands and a slick-greasy-smell. He pulled a handful of dates out of a pouch on his waist and held them out toward Altair. “I brought these for you.”

Most of Altair’s face blanched out white but brilliant-red-spots appeared high on his cheeks as his teeth ground together and his hands went flat on the table. His throat was swallowing back against the rise of gorge the smell of dates apparently incited. Abbas shook his hand and mocked disappointment that his gift was not well-liked. He closed his fist around them and the smell of the crushed dates increased its potency. 

Altair shoved himself up away from the table and darted out through the doorway into the outer room. A crock scraped across the ground and the terrible sound of his vomiting was easily heard over the lazy gush of water.

Abbas looked so _pleased_ as he shook the dates off his hand into the dish of food Altair had left behind. “He used to like them,” he said to Malik.

Malik considered his assault. He knew that dates were offensive to Altair while he was pregnant but not who else might have the same knowledge. From the smugness on Abbas’ face, he clearly either knew (which was preposterous as Altair would not have told him of a pregnancy much less given him a method to torture him) or he had been told. Malik motioned Abbas to sit and he sat. 

Altair reappeared briefly on his way from the other room to the back room. 

“If you touch, look at or speak to my wife I will gladly remove your testicles and shove them down your throat,” Malik said (as pleasantly as he had ever said anything to Abbas). “Your petty jealousy has no place in my home. You did not win him, Abbas. _I did_.”

“Bold words from a man with one arm,” Abbas said. 

Altair came back in the room and dropped a dish of food in front of Abbas. There was a third chair but no obvious space for Altair to sit (save for nearest to the dates) so he retreated to standing behind Malik. He said nothing and Malik did not turn his head to look at his face but whatever the expression it was more effective (by far) at disrupting Abbas’ smugness than Malik’s sincere words. 

“I have three arms,” Malik said. “Enjoy your meal.”

\--

Evening became night and Malik sent Altair into the private rooms. He intended to go himself but he stopped at the entrance to the backrooms to say, “do you need advice or counsel from me?”

Abbas was sitting at the table still, wearing his smugness like a poor shield. “I have never and will never require your advice, _Rafiq_. Leave a feather for me. I intend to kill Majd Addin at the execution tomorrow.”

“How quickly you work!” Malik said as he went to get the box of feathers from underneath the counter. “You have not been in Jerusalem for longer than a few hours and already you know there is an execution, that your target will be there and that it is advisable for you to assassinate him there! I envy your speed, Abbas.”

“I met an informant that was quite informing,” Abbas said. He picked up his cup and took a drink from it. “You should not assume that I only just arrived in your city, Rafiq.”

“I assume nothing,” Malik said. He took a feather out of the box and dropped it on the counter. “Safety and peace, Abbas.”

Abbas offered him a unconvincing smile. “Safety and peace, Rafiq.”

\--

Malik did not ask Altair how he was. The balance of his sword across his knees was evidence enough of how he felt. Safety and peace were impossible goals so long as men like Abbas remained in close proximity. But Altair looked at him and said (quiet and wet), “Rashid knew about the dates. He is the only one that knew.”

“When he is gone in the morning, you must go save Nidal. Call on your novices to assist you if you feel they are ready. I have sent the informants.”

Altair nodded and looked at their bed, “there will be no sleep tonight.”

“We should make the attempt anyway,” Malik said softly. He went to the store room where the weapons were kept and retrieved his own sword. He set it on the outside of their bed where his hand could easily reach it if the need arose. Altair put his between them and they laid down. 

\--

Sleep came in sporadic bursts. Malik dozed into the dreary half-sleep and was pulled out again by the slightest of sounds beyond the wall. The presence of the sword at his side kept him alert for danger that he might not have otherwise cared to note. 

Altair was awake every time Malik was pulled to full wakefulness. Perpetually stuck at full alert with one hand on his sword and his eyes trained on the door. Malik considered attempting to calm his fears (to what end, his fears were well-founded) and the best he could manage was to give Altair the space he required.

\--

The morning came before Malik was ready to face it. He dressed and went out to face Abbas, found the man had opened the bureau and left without notice. To where and to what end remained to be seen. Altair came out several minutes later and took note of the emptiness of the bureau.

“Malik,” he said quietly. “I have to gather my novices.” Then he turned to face him. “Do not send me away with your doubt and worry again. I will return to you.”

Such an idea was impossible to assure. Malik waved his hand in the air. “You cannot know that. There are too many unknown things for you to be certain of anything of the sort. I can tell you that I believe you and I can try but we too intelligent. We know it is not true.”

Altair said, “your belief in me has not faltered in the whole of our lives, Malik. You have hated me for being better than you every moment that we have known one another. You have fought to be as good as me since our trainers first tempted you with the thought. You have gone sour with hate believing I am unbeatable. Do not let what you have learned about me change what you should know is true.” Altair’s face was a stone mask, his body was tall and strong and there was _certainty_ not arrogance in his eyes. 

Malik shook his head. “This is true. Remember what I said, if Abbas touches you—kill him.”

Altair nodded once and then went to dress himself to go.

\--

The city moved around the bureau but it stayed the same. Malik stood below the grate in the bureau and listened for the sound of the sort of chaos that was incited by assassination. His ears burned for any sign of _anything_ and there was nothing to hear.

\--

The bells tolled in the afternoon. The sound rang through Malik’s head and ricocheted in his chest. His heart was thudding hard against his ribcage and his hand was hanging heavy at his side. 

Anger did not sustain him, trapped and impotent as he was, when doubt crept into his mind. He was alone, staring upward toward the sky and the world beyond, waiting for any sign of Altair’s return (victorious, _triumphant_ ). When doubt needled at him, he pulled himself up and out of the bureau to stand on the grate and look toward the execution. It was impossible to see from his roof, but he could hear the rising tide of sound as people panicked and ran.

Malik looked for (couldn’t expect to see at such a distance) Altair in the great rush of sound and saw nothing.

\--

The bells went quiet but Altair did not return.

\--

Malik was inside again, watching the water in the fountain (tricking himself into thinking nothing) when Nidal fell into the bureau from above. He landed on his side and groaned sorely. His white robes were stained red along one side and were gaping open across his chest. His neck was a mass of bruises and his eyes were swollen. 

“Nidal?” Malik said. And then, “where is Altair?”

Nidal got up onto his hands and knees with a heavy groan and sat back on his knees with one dirty hand spread across his chest. His lips were split and he looked as if he were going to collapse at any moment.

Aaron, the tiny novice, dropped in from the grate. He landed on his feet with more grace (but only barely). He was bloody as well, his hands shaking to match the deathly pale of his face. There was a scuffle of steps over his head as two women crouched around the opening but did not enter. Aaron waved them away. He was shaking-like-shaking-apart as he looked at Malik. “I don’t know where he is,” Aaron said. “I don’t know where he is.” Like he couldn’t stop himself from saying it. “There were so many people and I lost him. He was just so fast.” Aaron was holding a knife (a dangerous weapon in this boy’s uncertain hand). “He told us to bring him,” he nodded at Nidal, “back here. He said we had to get him back here. He said we had to. Then he was gone and there were so many people.”

Malik got to his feet and took a step toward Aaron but the kid darted backward. His shaking hardened into a weak, stiff stance. “I will not hurt you,” Malik said. “Give me the knife.”

Aaron looked at his hands and his eyes went wide as he dropped the weapon the ground. He stepped away from it and the splatter of blood drops that flew away from it. “I lost him,” Aaron said again.

Nidal grabbed Malik by the wrist, “Abbas,” he said with painful effort. “Abbas is going to kill him.”

Behind him, Aaron was coiling up into a ball with his arms around his legs and his head against his knees. There was a bloody handprint on his back and a slash across one of his ears. “What have I done?” he whimpered. 

“Get up,” Malik said to the boy. He turned toward Nidal and eased him back to lay by the fountain. The split on his chest was not so deep that it would need a great deal of attention but it was bad enough it would require cleaning. The bruising on his throat was troublesome. The evident pain that he was in needed to be addressed quickly. 

Aaron was looking at him, (small and scared), “what?”

“I said, _get up_. Come here and help him out of his clothes.” Then he looked up at the others that were still hovering. There was a third now, the last a bald woman with a blood sword hanging from one of her hands. “Find him,” Malik said to them. Then he went to the storeroom to fetch the things he’d need.

By the time he came out again, Aaron had successfully stripped Nidal’s chest bare. He was covered in bruises, red-and-black-and-purple all fresh and swollen. His ribs were undoubtedly broken. Malik set the supplies down next to him. “Abbas did this?” he said.

Nidal nodded. 

“Is that man going to kill Altair?” Aaron asked. He was not shaking now but the frailness of his frame did nothing to lend the idea of strength. Whatever unknown horrors this boy had just seen or committed were (apparently) small in comparison to the idea that Altair might die.

Malik sighed. “He will try.” Then he had to turn his attention to the man he had in front of him.


	25. Chapter 25

Altair went to Aaron (not Mary) when he went searching for the leader of his small pack of novices. He found the boy wandering aimlessly around the city, flitting in and out of crowds and pulling small trinkets from the pockets of men and women that looked as if they could afford to lose things. The smile that spread across Aaron’s face was a child’s joy to match impatient shuffle of his body forward toward Altair. 

“I need the others, bring them to me,” Altair said before Aaron could ask him anything. 

Even with his attempt to stall the inevitable questions, Aaron said, “but you are well? You were gone and we did not know why or if you would return.”

“I am well,” Altair said. “If we survive this day I will explain. Find the others. Meet me here in an hour.” They had that much time at least.

\--

After having spent so long in Jerusalem, Altair was familiar with its turns. He found his way to the execution without incident and watched the guards fanning out around the perimeter. There were men stationed on select roofs that gave them easy sight into the crowd that would undoubtedly assemble. What had been advertised as a public execution could easily turn into a slaughter if Majd Addin were so inclined. Abbas’ interference would no doubt turn the assembly into a chaotic mob. 

There was little that Altair could do to prevent such an occurrence. His purpose (this day) was only to find and rescue Nidal.

\--

When Altair returned to the meeting place, Aaron had assembled the others. Peninah had supplied weapons to everyone that was in need of one. Mary was scowling openly at the unwanted attention of a passing man with gawking-eyes that undoubtedly felt uncomfortable with such a group. Aaron was shifting from one foot to another while Dinah tried to look as comfortable as she could manage in such a conspicuous place. 

“I have come to ask for your help. My request is not without great danger. One of my,” not his, precisely, not at present, but Malik’s, “brothers is to be executed today for crimes he has not committed.”

“So you’re going to rescue him?” Dinah asked.

“How?” Mary said.

“A man will kill Majd Addin during the execution today. This will provide us the cover that we need to free my brother. Your part will be to see him safely back to where my husband waits.” Altair waited for the understanding to register on their faces, for each of them to think through what he was asking of them, and for them to decide if they wished to be involved or not. Peninah nodded first and then Aaron. 

Mary said, “what secret are you not sharing with us?”

“The man who kill Majd Addin is a foul and disgusting man. If Abbas finds you, he will not hesitate to kill you and he is very skilled.” Altair would know that, above all others, he had trained nearly the whole of his life with Abbas. They had stumbled out of childhood and into near adulthood attempting to best one another. There were few in the world that knew him as well as Abbas. Even less men that could remain in the ring with him for as long. “Do not fight him,” Altair said. “Run.”

They were solemn as they nodded. 

“Go and bring as many men as you know are loyal to you to the execution. When the fighting begins it will benefit us to have as many allies as we can. Warn them that there will be fighting but do not speak of what I have said to you.” Then he waved them off and they scattered.

All save Mary who had her hand on the hilt of a sword that seemed far too large for her deceptively frail frame. She looked at him without fear. “Can you kill him?” Mary asked, “this man, _Abbas_?”

Altair frowned at the question. “Like you, I can kill anyone.”

Mary snorted a soft sound through her nose. “I do not believe it to be true.”

“My hands are red with the blood I have spilt in my life. All have fallen before me; none have been spared.” Altair had killed anyone that interfered with his missions—indiscriminate of their innocence or guilt—and he had never suffered the pangs of remorse or regret. Nightmares of death did not haunt his sleeping hours. Every face of every man and woman he had slaughtered was there-and-gone as soon as the light faded from their faces.

“I do not believe it to be true,” Mary said again. “You are not the man I think you are, or you are not the man you think you are.” Then she turned away from him and went to find her own meager allies among the men of the city.

\--

Once-upon-a-time, when Altair was a stupid-little-boy with snot in his nose and unshed tears blurring his vision, his father’s righteous anger was red stripes on his skin and bloody pain inside of his mouth. There had been Abbas, a big-headed-boy with meaty hands (even then) and impudent curiosity that was drawn across the jagged rocks and uneven terrain to the sound of Altair’s shrinking little body hiding far from the common paths.

Abbas had said, “I’ve heard of you.”

Altair was only a child (a small-and-stupid-boy, then). He knew enough of the other boys to know when they came to mock him. His body was sluggish with fresh pain but still stronger and faster than most of the others. His retaliation for being found was his bony fist aiming for this stranger’s face. 

Abbas ducked out of the way and put his hands up in defeat, saying, “no, wait, stop!”

Altair wanted to hurt him for the humiliation of being found and the boy fell over and covered his face. Abbas was shrinking little ball of limbs saying, “I didn’t mean it badly.” And when Altair failed to hit him, Abbas moved his arm away from his face and offered an awkward smile. He said, “the other boys do not like me either. We could be friends, couldn’t we?”

“I don’t have friends,” Altair said to him. 

“I could be,” Abbas said. His words were petulant and stubborn as he got up to his feet. He ducked his head to the side to look at the raw marks on Altair’s skin and looked _sad_ to see them there. “My Father says if he were as good a man as your father he would beat me as regularly. I am glad he is not as good a man.”

Altair said nothing.

Abbas shifted on his feet and looked around the sacred little hiding place. “I could get us food,” he said suddenly. The words a rush of sudden inspiration. “You are all bones. I will bring you food.” Then he set off again. Altair had little expectation that the boy would return and even if he did that he would bring food. So when Abbas returned with a pouch of savory meat and a hopeful smile, it was _unexpected_. 

Abbas gave him the food and said, “we can be friends, can’t we?”

\--

The execution was crowded. The bulk of the bodies unknown men and women that had come for the spectacle. The number of guards had doubled since Altair had scouted the area only a few hours ago. If there were informants hidden among the crowd of bodies, they were not identifiable. The lack of the familiar white blur of brothers around him left Altair with an uneasy feeling.

Altair stood in the center of the crowd, listening to the roar of voices agreeing to the needless deaths of these so-called-criminals. The men and women that were tied to the posts were facing death with various levels of dignity and resolve. One was crying, one was staring outward blankly and the woman was crying out about her innocence. It was only Nidal that stood with his eyes closed as he hung his head. His resignation to death was an offense greater than Altair could stand. 

Majd Addin appeared with the grandeur of a beloved public official and the crowd he’d command adored him. Altair looked around, searched the sea of bodies for some familiar shape or color and found nothing.

\--

When they were seven (and stupid), Abbas had taken to nagging Altair out of his own bed and into his own or simply invading Altair’s. They were too-big-at-seven to be sleeping under a shared blanket but Abbas wheedled and whined. Altair had resisted in the beginning. The other boys already had dozens of reasons to hate them, there was no need to give them anything new to talk about. And yet Abbas found his way to Altair’s side time-and-time again in the barracks where they had come to live when they joined the ranks of assassins. They were tiny boys afforded only tiny spaces to stay. Abbas made Altair’s space even smaller by wedging himself up against Altair’s back. 

“Abbas,” Altair mumbled (half-asleep). It was meant to be an objection but it was a poor one. Abbas’ arm was around his side and the heat of his body was comforting and pleasant against his chilly back. Altair huffed a sigh. “Keep your cold feet away from mine.”

Abbas was smiling behind him. His nod a press of his chin against Altair’s shoulder as he said, “try not to snore.”

\--

Abbas came only after two men were killed by the guards. He rose out of the crowd with a sudden lurch of motion and went straight for Majd Addin. The regent either failed to react quickly enough to save his own life or was blind by his own arrogance. Abbas drove the hidden blade through the man’s throat with practiced efficiency as the guards who were too slow to save their leader howled in outrage. 

Altair darted forward, slid between the sudden panicking bodies and slapped his hands to the raised platform where those awaiting execution stood. He pulled himself up and ran forward toward Nidal. There should have been other informants to assist him but there were none. The guards were drawn to Abbas—the bright white of his hood a beacon for all to follow—and Altair slid up behind the post where Nidal was lashed in place. He pulled a dagger from his belt and cut through the ropes. 

Nidal fell forward, landed on his knees and directly into the path of a guard who was rushing to join the others. Abbas had already turned to run, jumped down from the platform and landed in the crowd. Altair pulled his sword as he came out from behind the post and rose it to deflect the blow that would have ended Nidal’s life. The guard snarled in hatred for him and Altair (who had little time to accomplish his mission) ended the fight quickly. 

Peninah and Aaron were at the edge of the stage with anxious expressions as Altair dragged Nidal toward them. He looked out across the sea of people and saw Abbas scaling the side of one of the buildings. “Take him,” Altair said to them. 

He looked for the informants again and found nothing. 

\--

By the time they were nine, Abbas-and-Altair were hated above all others. Abbas was bigger then, his big head and his meaty fists making for powerful opposition against slimmer little boys like Malik. 

The attacks came often enough. Altair and Abbas sat back-to-back when they were not busy with lessons. Out in the open when they had time to sit and do nothing, or while eating a recently pilfered bit of food, they pressed their skinny backs together and kept watch out for the shuffling-approach of boys who thought they could regain their lost pride by drawing blood.

“Here’s one,” Abbas said. And Altair would turn his head to look toward the sound of approaching footsteps. But these boys were smarter than most, because they’d sent a number of the younger novices to sneak up on them from one side while they came on silent-creeping-feet from another direction. Altair never saw the blow that landed against his temple before he felt it. 

He woke up (dizzy) to the sound of Abbas’ endless war-scream. And the wail of his big-meaty-fists against the bodies of the boys that had come to fight them. Abbas was bloody-mouthed and enraged screaming defiance against their enemies. Altair was useless on his feet with his head spinning. He landed on his ass in the dirt with a click of his teeth snapping shut so hard he bit his own tongue. 

The other boys were laughing when they hit Abbas. They laughed at him when he fell. Altair forced himself up and to his feet again. He couldn’t fight, his head was spinning so badly his whole body felt light. He fell forward to his knees and crawled on hands-and-knees to where Abbas was covering his head in the middle of three boys with bawdy-pleased laughs. He pushed his way to the center of them and put his body over Abbas’. The percussive sound of fists hitting his back was dull in comparison to the sawing-cries as Abbas wailed for their defeat.

\--

Altair found Mary in the center of a fight. The guards seemed to have been drawn to her by nothing more than the sword that she carried. She was already bleeding when he intervened on her behalf and her gratitude at surviving was an odd flush of color on her face.

“Come,” he said. He grabbed her hand and pulled her out toward the exits. They fit in easily (if somewhat without welcome) in the surge of bodies searching for escape. The men that his novices had brought to fight the guards were excelling at occupying the many men that might have hunted after Nidal and Abbas. (Altair did not feel any particular joy at assisting Abbas in any way.) They had only barely made it out beyond the chaos and into the streets before Aaron slammed into him from the side. 

“The man found us,” Aaron said. “He found us!”

Altair let go of Mary and said, “take me to him,” to Aaron. They were running, all three of them, knocking people out of the way as the clanging of the bells over their head brought a steady stream of guards from their posts toward the riot spilling into the streets. Aaron ducked around a corner, skidded on the debris of a crumbling wall and pointed Altair onward. 

Abbas was kicking Nidal in the chest with all the force he could manage. Altair’s grip tightened around his sword as he walked forward. The sound of Abbas’ foot landing on Nidal’s ribs was muffled by the many other sounds. The man, in all of his preoccupied glee, did not see or hear Altair before he was close enough to kick Abbas in the hip. The impact knocked him over and sent him skidding in the dirt. 

“Yes!” Abbas said as he got to his feet. “At last, the traitor shows himself!” 

Aaron and Mary were hovering at his back. Altair raised his sword. “Take him,” he said. Then, to Abbas he said, “I am no traitor.”

Abbas drew his own weapon. “Aren’t you?” He looked on dispassionately as Altair’s novices picked Nidal up from the ground. “You are interfering with my mission, Altair. No longer an assassin and still defying our Master.”

“Do not waste your words, Abbas. Rashid has not sent you here to kill Majd Addin.”

Abbas smiled at him. “You were always too smart, Altair. Think of the many troubles you could have spared yourself if only you’d been born dull.” He leveled his sword at Altair’s gut. “I have two targets.”

Altair bared his teeth. “Don’t do this, Abbas.”

But Abbas only laughed. 

\--

Even as children, they were not innocent. Abbas took a sharp and repugnant sort of joy out of humiliating their enemies. (It was his idea, for instance, not Altair’s to throw the pots of piss on the competition.) His swollen lips and big head were full of foul things to call the other boys. His voice itself a grating kind of goading that drove even the most calm among them to frothy anger.

Altair’s revenge was decisive and quick. He stood in the middle of the practice ring facing the boys that tried-and-tried but never-ever could manage to beat him. He beat them without mercy, under the watchful gaze of everyone and without tricks. Altair did not need to sneak up on his prey to defeat it.

The weaker boys cried and gave but the stubborn ones—the ones like Malik—were bloody-and-defeated on their feet with sagging shoulders and _hatred_ in their faces. Abbas catcalled from the side: an endless litany of garbage to remind the losers of their place. 

Then Altair hit them again, after the match was called to a halt. After he had won. After his opponent had lost or cried for mercy. There was no mercy to be found in his blood or bones. There was no mercy in his heart to give for these despicable little creatures. There trainers shouted at him and sent him to run circles until his Father heard of his antics.

Abbas was always with him, running at his side until their legs gave out. Abbas always laughed at the pain in their bodies and knocked his hand against Altair’s. “They got what they deserved,” he said. “They can’t beat us.”

Altair smiled (reflexively) and looked at the rosy-redness of Abbas’ cheeks puffed out in hard breaths. “They have beat us,” Altair said instead. “They are eating at the castle and we are to go hungry again.”

Abbas waved his hand in the air. “I will find us food.”

\--

“You ask too much of me,” Abbas said. He knocked the hood back away from his face. The sweat on his skin dripping down out of his hair. It was thick across his lip as the dragged his tongue across his lips. “ _I_ serve our Master still. _I_ have been loyal to him.”

“You are loyal to a man that calls for the murder of your brothers?” Altair demanded. He did not move to attack but watch the way Abbas shifted on his feet. Cowardice was ever Abbas’ biggest problem. He was paralyzed by fear and indecision. It stalled his hands and his feet when he needed to be swift and merciless. 

Abbas’ face because an exaggeration of shock. “It is our calling, Altair. It has always been. Our Master needs you to return to us.” He did not step forward, he did not beckon Altair to attack him. So they were left staring at one another across a scuffed up bit of ground. “It doesn’t have to hurt,” Abbas said sweetly. 

Altair’s grip on the hilt of his sword tightened uselessly. He let out a breath. Reason would not prevail. “Then come,” Altair said, “if you think you are able.”

The clanging of the bells was a ricochet of racket hanging over their heads, covering the rush of bodies and the approach of footsteps. Abbas’ eyes flicked to the side, away from Altair (and that alone provided him ample time to kill the man) and the smile that was etched across his face twisted up at the corners. He was _vivid_ with pleasure at whatever he saw. He _ran_ straight to the side of where Altair stood. Instinct turned Altair toward whatever Abbas was pleased to see but he might have known even before he saw Aaron what Abbas intended.

Aaron yelped when Abbas caught him by the throat and dragged him up against his body. His eyes were wide-and-wild as Abbas’ arm went low around his chest and the sword went up against his throat. 

Altair did not flinch. Aaron’s whimpering was a distant noise over the sound of his own heartbeat. The stupid boy should have listened when he was told to go with the others. He should have listened and he had not. His death (that seemed inevitable now) would be a warning to the others that did not heed his words. Altair looked at Aaron, not at Abbas, and nodded his head. 

Abbas was talking (always talking), saying: “an omega? I heard you have a collection of them! I heard you train them. You were always so funny, Altair.” He did not see or did not think Aaron capable of wielding the dagger the boy held in his hand and such was perfectly surprised to have it inexpertly thrust into his leg. Abbas shrieked in outrage, Altair darted forward to pull his arm out away from Aaron and the boy slid free. Startled by injury, Abbas lashed out and Altair stepped out of the path of his swinging arm and the blade that sprang from his left wrist. “Bitch!” Abbas shouted. 

Guards were drawn by the shout and Abbas did not pause a moment to face them but turned and fled, his wound leaving a trail of blood easy enough for even the least skilled of trackers to follow.

\--

When he was eleven, Altair was obliged to watch his father die. Abbas was quiet with horror the way Rashid was noisy with pity. But Altair was numb-to-everything save for something hot and liquid set into his gut. He had neither loved-nor-hated the man regardless of the many reasons he’d been given to manage either emotion. His father was a simple fact of his life, a constant itch in the back of his head demanding his obedience and his perseverance against all obstacles. 

Altair did not cry for his father but Abbas did.

Abbas found his way into Altair’s bed and wiggled his hands up against Altair’s chest and held him close and cried for him, the tears of a boy who could not imagine a world without his father. He cried until Altair’s neck was wet from his tears and his tight-gripping-arms were squeezing the breath from his body. He said, “didn’t you love him?”

“I don’t know,” Altair said.

Abbas’ tears hiccupped to a stopping point and his round cheek pressed against Altair’s shoulder. “Do you love me?” As if such a thing were of great importance. As if there was anyone in the world that would doubt if Abbas made such a claim. They were inseparable little monsters set apart from their brothers. Abbas with his foul mouth and Altair with his bone-fists. But Abbas shook him with the tight grip around his ribs. “Altair,” he said again, “do you?”

“Leave me be,” Altair said.

Abbas sighed. “I love you. I’d do anything for you. You’re my brother.” Then he lapsed into silence as his tears dried on Altair’s skin. It was almost morning again when Abbas’ breathing shifted slow-and-deep as if he were on the verge of sleep.

Altair said, “I do,” and Abbas smiled against his neck and squeezed his ribs so sweetly. It didn’t seem like much in the wake of his father’s death, but it was something that made the awful watery-sensation in his gut abate just slightly. 

\--

The guards attacked Aaron (of course they did) or Altair might not have bothered to stay and deal with them. They were angry-and-confused by the chaos. They were trained only sufficiently enough to deal with a common criminal. Killing them was less of a chore and more of an unfortunate necessity. When they were dead, Altair said, “go back to the others!” to Aaron before he found the trail of blood in the dirt and took off after it.

Aaron did not listen but try to follow him. His speed was impressive set against others but he quickly lagged behind until his steps could not be heard. Altair followed Abbas up onto a roof top, across several planks of wood and down again into an abandoned home. The man was standing there with a binding on his bleeding leg and his yellowed-teeth bared at him. 

There were no words to warn of his intent. Abbas attacked him as soon as his feet were on the ground. His offended pride was worth more to his resolve than the orders he had been given. There was full power behind the strikes of his sword and a quick-and-pointed effort to his assault. 

They had perfected this dance in the early-mornings and after-dark hours of their lives. Altair knew every step by heart. It was not a surprise to him when he found himself back into a corner any more than it was a surprise to Abbas when Altair kicked him in the wounded leg. 

Abbas was pink-and-red-spotted howling in pain again. His spit landed on Altair’s face as he knocked Altair’s sword aside and threw his own on the ground. The grip of his meaty hands was choking-and-tight coiled up in his clothes. He pulled Altair off the wall and slammed him back against it. “Bitch!” he shouted at him again.

Altair tried to knee him in the crotch and only just barely managed to move his body out of the path of a fist aimed for his exposed stomach. He went _down_ and dragged Abbas with him so they toppled into a heap of body parts. Abbas’ fist landed across his ear and it made a bellow of sound and dizzy shock go through his skull. 

The weight of Abbas’ body over his flattened him to the ground and the man took Altair’s moment of disorientation to grab him by the jaw and hair and pull his head back to bare his throat. His knee was pressing into the softer flesh on the inside of Altair’s thigh as he leaned across his body. “What makes you so fucking special?” Abbas hissed at him. “What makes you better than anyone? You are _nothing_ , born as nothing, raised as nothing. You are _worse_ than nothing.” 

Altair pushed his hands against Abbas’ chest to shove him off but the hand in his hair tightened and the hidden blade sprang forward with a sudden close proximity to his throat. Abbas grinned at his stillness.

“There now,” he said oh-so-sweetly. “Does your husband hold you like this, Altair? Does he look at your face when he fucks you?” His mouth was hanging open in a half-expressed laugh. “ _Malik_ ,” he said as if he were spitting a foul taste from his mouth. “We laughed at him as children. Do you remember? That stubborn little ass that would never _stay down_. You broke his nose, Altair.” 

Altair could have killed him. Abbas did not know about the hidden blade he had. He didn’t know to protect the fragile spaces between his ribs. Even if the weight of the man’s body drove the blade against his throat down it would not be a fatal wound at the present angle. Yet, his hands were pushing fruitlessly at Abbas’ chest as he listened. 

“You should be thankful to be rid of his useless child. You should thank me for what I have been sent to do—to free you from him.” His face was too close, the smell of his oily hair and his greasy skin an overwhelming stench. His mouth a moist heat across Altair’s cheek. 

Instinct, not reason, gave Altair the power to throw Abbas off him. He rolled away from him, shuffled forward on his knees to grab his sword and did not manage to get his hand on the hilt of it before Abbas landed across his back. One of his arms was around Altair’s ribs and the other grabbed him by the chin to yank his head up (again). Abbas’ mouth was hot-and-painful biting into his already sore ear but it was his _words_ (his fucking _words_ ) going like _this_ :

“I watched you, Altair. I watched you in the dungeon room. It could have been me in there with you.”

\--

By thirteen, Altair knew what he was. The bloody realization of his fears was little more than footnote to his overwhelming certainty. His first fever was hardly worth noting, his second was barely more noticeable. But the third one, the first he had after Al Mualim allowed him to stay, wracked his body with things he barely understood and a thirst for water and _touch_ that stole away any sense of peace he had ever managed to cultivate.

Robbed of safety, he had sought out the only person he could think of through the bleak heat of his body. Abbas had been shocked when Altair found him. Perhaps more shocked to have Altair pull him away from the training he’d been assigned and push him into a pile of hay (not at all meant to be laid in). Altair tumbled in after him, wrapped his arms around Abbas’ chest and pressed their bodies together with only half-realized thoughts of what he was doing.

“Altair,” Abbas said. His voice was scoured from his throat even as his arms went around Altair’s body. His meaty hands were comforting damp spots against Altair’s back. “What are the other boys going to think?”

Altair had never cared for the thoughts of any other boy. He pressed his sweaty forehead against the unbreakable safety of Abbas’ collarbone and said nothing. 

Abbas made a noise like pain but held onto him long after the heat of the hay had them both soaked in sweat. Altair fell asleep and woke again before Abbas tried to move away. When he did, his face was red-and-embarrassed. “You have to let me go,” he said, “Altair, let me go a minute. I’ll be back.” Then he was extracting himself from the hay with an awkward limp and slipping off to do whatever drove him away from Altair.

\--

It could not be true. The very first (last, only) truth that Altair could think through the sudden stop of his heart-and-lungs-and-brain was that it simply _could not_ be true.

Yet, Abbas’ teeth were at his neck and his slimy-tongue was slicking across his skin. For one brief, (cold), second it was the only thing he could feel in all the world. Abbas’ offensive _desire_ turned _jealous spite_ and the _entitled_ sense of (denied) ownership that had followed Altair since the moment Abbas decided to forego patience and attempt force instead. 

Altair drove his elbow into Abbas’ meaty body with all the force he could manage. He threw him off and turned with inhuman speed, grabbed him by the front of his robes and pulled him off the ground far enough to smash his fist into the man’s face. Abbas put his left hand up to stop him, the hidden blade slid free again and Altair shoved his arm flat to the ground, pulled a long-thin-knife from its sheath on his waist and stabbed it straight through the center of his hand. “You watched?” Altair screamed at him. He dragged him up off the ground and punched him again-and-again-and-again. “You watched?” The words made little sense in the hurricane of _nothing_ coming up from the center of his chest. 

Abbas wriggled and Altair hit him again. On his face, on his chest, on his side when he managed to half turn in an attempt to protect himself. Abbas tried to tear his hand free, tried to pull the knife out of his hand as he issued hollow-sounds-of-pain. And Altair _hit him_ again-and-again. 

\--

They were only fourteen, hiding away from the other boys, when Altair’s head went fuzzy with fever and Abbas’ damp hands pressed against his skin oh-so-welcome and delightful. They had the stolen food Abbas brought and water and a comfortable nest built to sleep in. They were safe from discovery and alone-in-the-world.

Abbas said, “you could be mine,” he said, “I would take care of you, Altair,” and “I would let you be an assassin if that’s what you want.”

Altair was fourteen and _stubborn_ , not fully aware of the wants of his body. He said, “I don’t want to be a wife, Abbas. I’d rather die.”

Abbas’ sound was pained and small, like a fluttering animal, before he sighed defeat. “Perhaps I shouldn’t come with you anymore. You drive me mad, Altair. You fill my head with ideas.”

Yes, of course he did. All omegas did. Altair put his hand across Abbas’ mouth to silence him and took shameless advantage of the comfort of his closeness. “That’s fine,” he said to him, “I’ll manage myself.”

Abbas kissed his shoulder and Altair pushed him back. Abbas protested but came back anyway, sliding chaste and warm against his side. “I love you,” he whispered. “Don’t you love me?”

\--

Altair couldn’t feel anything. Not his bloody fists, not the impact of bone-on-bone. He couldn’t hear the bells. There was nothing (not-a-thing) except for the beat of his heart. Except the brittle _nothing_ of an old hurt suddenly wrenched free from its safe-hidden-place. He did not know how many times he hit Abbas. He did not know when the man had stopped fighting back.

Awareness only snapped back into place with the smack of a blood-wet-hand against his face. Abbas’ fingers smeared over his cheek weakly. His voice was a gurgle escaping in bloody bubbles from the pulpy broken meat of his face. He said, “stop, _Altair_. Stop.” 

It was the voice of that stupid little boy sneaking into his bed at night saying, _don’t you love me_. Altair was breathing so hard his body was _quaking_. He went still, on his knees, leaning across Abbas’ body with one of his hands in the man’s clothes and the other in a fist stalled by the hand still pushing at his chest. Abbas seemed to cave in with sudden relief. His left hand was split by the knife, it lay bleeding in the dirt, his face was unrecognizable as human, and his chest was patterned with bloody fist-prints. His neck was swelling and his legs were dusty from the churned-up-dirt where his feet had kicked-and-kicked to no avail. 

“Stop,” Abbas said again. His hand fell away from Altair. Something fluttered in his face as if he were trying to close his swollen eyes. 

“You do not deserve mercy _from me_ ,” Altair said. But his words were blank. The meaning absent. He had exhausted himself and sat back in the dirt with his legs stuck out in front of him and Abbas’ blood thick and dark on his hands. His face was wet with sweat-or-tears. Every breath seemed to require more effort than his body could give. 

Time passed in a syrupy crawl and Abbas coughed and choked on blood, groaned in pain and persisted in life despite the disaster of wounds beaten into his body. His head did not turn but his voice came like a whine, (a _child’s whine_ ) saying, “Altair.” 

Altair looked at him, what was left of him. His vengeance had always been so absolute. He had never had mercy before. He thought of (Malik) when he said, “make it _right_ , Abbas. Tell me what information you have sent to your Master.”

\--&\--

It was hours (perhaps) later before Malik had successfully tended to Altair’s novices and Nidal. He had received no answer from the women about Altair’s whereabouts but Aaron said (in such a small voice), “he hides in the garden across from this place. I’ve seen him do it often.”

Malik’s head was full of unanswered things. He looked at the boy (no longer shaking) and nodded. “Come, I will show you how to close the grate in the ceiling. You must leave it closed until I return.”

Aaron nodded and followed him.

\--

There was blood on the outside of the garden, a noticeable brown smear of it on the hanging curtain. The smell of it filled the heated interior. Altair did not look up at him when Malik stepped inside. He did not look up at all but stared unblinking down at his hands, the split skin of his knuckles and the spray of blood that went up his arms and across his face. His sword was dropped carelessly to his right side. 

There were scratches all across his neck and left cheek. 

Malik sat on the opposite side of the garden and was careful not to touch him. He said, “four of your novices returned to me. Nidal is safe.”

Altair looked up at him with injured insolence. His face was a loose mask as he swallowed his immediate reply and just nodded instead. He licked his lips and managed (only barely) to say, “I killed Abbas.” His eyebrows pulled down as the edges of his lips pulled up and his face went brilliantly-pink. His voice was hardly audible when he said, “he _watched_ them.” He pressed his bloody hands against the bones over his eyes as his breath stuttered. 

Malik moved forward and hovered just beyond touching distance for a half-a-second before he put his arm around him. Altair fell against his chest as if suddenly boneless and his face was hot-and-wet as he cried. Malik pressed his cheek against his hair and tightened his hand in his loose clothes. “I’m sorry,” Malik whispered because there was nothing (better) to say.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the novice joke, I simply could not resist

The events that took him from the rooftop garden to his own bed remained hazy even after Altair had woken up to the dreary sound of an uncomfortably warm afternoon. His body was still ragged with exhaustion, every part of him felt as if it had been beaten and yet there was hardly a mark on him. The worst of the damage he had suffered was his rubbed-raw and swollen knuckles and battered hands. The ache in his muscles existed as the only evidence that he had beaten a man nearly to death the day before. 

Altair rubbed his face and got to his feet. He was clean, there was no red speckle of blood still covering his arms and body. The scratches on his neck pulled when he tried to stretch the soreness out of his limbs and he rubbed them as best he could with his stiff hands. The scabs crumbled and a thin line of warm blood smeared on his fingers. 

There was a heavy noise near the door that made Altair jump out of the waking-dream he was sinking into. He was naked (another state of affairs he simply could not recall in perfect clarity) but his sword was laying out next to where he’d woken up. He expected it to be a mess of crusted blood but it was pristine when he pulled it from its scabbard.

Malik stopped in the doorway of their room. He was dressed in his usual clothing, the garb of a Rafiq and a trusted assassin. His face was weighted with weariness and his arm was burdened with a bundle of clothing. “I came to see if you had woken up.” 

“Yes,” Altair said (unnecessarily). He sheathed his sword again and put it back in its place. His hands were _aching_ just from the minimal effort of holding it and his arms felt loose and useless despite the pain in them. 

“I brought you clothes,” Malik said (just as unnecessarily). He lifted his burden higher and then took a step forward. Altair was not sure what made Malik falter and move with such slowness but it was an uncomfortable chasm of intent and space that was created by the faltering shuffle of his feet. When he was (at last) close enough to offer the bundle, he was still just barely within touching distance. 

“You are a strange man,” Altair said to him. Something like an echo of the day before when Mary had looked at him as if he did know the truth of himself. Her words had said he was not the man he thought himself to be (or that she thought he was) but it struck him that they fit this situation as well. The whole of his _marriage_ could be encompassed in those words. “You are not the man I thought you were.”

“Is that for better or worse?” Malik asked.

Altair took the clothes from him because they must have been heavy balanced in his single hand. “Better,” he said. Then he looked down at the familiar clothing he now held. The weight of it was as well-known to him as his own skin. Even if these were far newer and less worn than the ones that had taken from him, Altair could have found the assassin whites in the blackest of nights. “I am not an assassin, Malik.”

“You are more an assassin today than you were the day your rank was wrongly stripped from you. Our mission will not end when Rashid is dead but when we have recovered our brotherhood from the damage that he has done to it.” 

It was a pleasant thought, returning to his work as an assassin. Perhaps, even more so with Malik’s approval when the man had once been the loudest of the opposing force that labeled Altair a constant threat to all assassins. It had been Altair’s goal since the beginning to soften Malik through the repeated use of touch (and sex) until he was agreeable to allow Altair to return to the brotherhood. The path he had thought to take was gone now, the one that lay before them was far more treacherous and uncertain. Malik did not offer him covertly guided compliance. No, what Malik had given him was fully-aware endorsement. 

(What had Haydar said of Malik? To make an ally of him. To use him to sway the minds of men?) 

“These are a novice’s,” Altair said. He touched at the gray sleeves and cowl. 

Malik snorted. “I did not say you were _good_ assassin.”

Altair smiled. “I hope that we survive so that I may one day persuade you into believing I am worthy of the rank I attained once.” Then he dropped the clothes on the bed behind him. “Thank you, Malik.”

Malik nodded. “Dress, if you are feeling well enough, your novices are still waiting to see you. The boy, especially, is agitated at how he has not been permitted to disturb you.” 

Altair nodded and Malik left him to dress in peace.

\--

The smell of food guided Altair out of the backrooms with great haste. Once he had finished pulling his clothes on (a simple task made arduous by the pain and stiffness in his hands) his stomach asserted its displeasure at being ignored for so long. When he found his way to the front room, his small band of novices went suddenly silent and the only sound to be heard was the hum of a woman’s voice and the slow fall of water in the outer room. 

Aaron was on his feet with unhindered impetuous need. He rushed across the space between them and stopped only just before he could get his arms around Altair. It seemed to occur to him (all at once) that Altair might not benefit from (or want) a hug. The thought dropped the edges of his smile and made his arms hanging in the air seem comically out of place. “Are you well?” Aaron asked.

Altair did not want to hug the boy. He was not overly fond of being touched. He did not enjoy it. But he hugged him anyway. A quick, (necessary) thing that was over and finished before Aaron had a chance to become too comfortable in it. “Where is Nidal?”

“He is out there,” Aaron answered, “Mary and Peninah went to get his wife and child. She is with him now. We could not find the other informants. There are so many guards we did not risk staying gone for very long.”

No, to do so would be a mistake. His novices were barely trained well enough to survive what they managed thus far. Altair nodded his thanks and Aaron retreated back to where the others were sitting at the table. Malik pushed a dish of food toward him and said, “eat and then we must talk of what comes next.”

Altair did not bother himself with modesty. He ate with unashamed hunger.

\--

Nidal, when Altair finally did go to see him, looked as unpleasantly purpled as Altair felt (but was not). His throat was mottled with a variety of blue-and-red-and-blackened bruises, his chest was wrapped to protect the ribs that must have been cracked during Abbas’ assault on him. Both of his eyes were ringed with black, swollen but open enough to see him. His voice, when he tried to speak, was hoarse and thin. “Thank you,” Nidal said.

“Do not thank me,” Altair said. “You have done the same for me.”

Nidal nodded and his wife’s unhappiness seemed to abate just enough to make her presence somewhat less of a threat. She said nothing to him but stroked her fingers through Nidal’s hair. Their child was laying with her head pillowed on her mother’s leg. 

Altair did not want to disturb his peace but the matter of the missing informants was troublesome. They should have been at the execution. Malik had sent them there to be of some assistance in saving Nidal but they had been nowhere in the crowd. “Would your informants have listened to Abbas if he told them to disobey Malik?”

Nidal shook his head. Then licked his broken lips and said, “they are loyal to the Rafiq, and especially to Malik.”

Which meant that Abbas had either killed them (a task that seemed to monumental for a man as fundamentally lazy as Abbas) or otherwise imprisoned them somewhere they might have felt safe. Altair nodded his thanks to Nidal for the information and retreated back into the room where his four novices were impatient for attention. Dinah and Peninah had climbed up to his abandoned bed and were sitting with their legs hanging off. Aaron seemed to be aggravated by how they had managed the feat and he could not.

“The informants were not at the execution,” Altair said. 

Malik was staring at a bit of blank paper that must have been meant to be a message to Rashid. The task of informing the man of Abbas’ death without assigning blame or alerting him to their betrayal seemed monumental. There was no telling how many spies Rashid had in the world, no way to know how quickly they would be discovered. But there was no urgency in Malik’s face as he puzzled over how to phrase the information. “Your novices said they did not see them. I cannot imagine where they might be. Abbas could not have killed them. Perhaps one, but not all.”

“They could be trapped,” Altair said. He rested his hands on the counter top across from where Malik stood. The weight of his own arms was too immense to tolerate, the ache in his hands was a throb that distracted him from his purpose. “I could go and see if I could find them.”

“No,” Malik said (bluntly). He motioned at Altair’s entire body. “You are barely fit for standing. You could not rescue them even if they were trapped. They will either come or they will not.”

The words were harsh and hollow. Malik flattened his hand against the paper. “If you must do something to further our cause, turn your attention to your novices. I told them only a little of our mission and our brotherhood.”

Altair did not want to say that he had not intended to tell them anything of the brotherhood. He might have told Malik the truth that he had never intended to become so involved with them or to involve them in his own personal mission. Their lives were not bound the creed. But he could not speak the words with their eyes and ears intent on his every word. “Perhaps when you are finished composing your message you could teach them better swordsmanship than I am able.”

“Ha,” Malik retorted. “I would have to remove your failure from their memories first.”

“Say only that Abbas is dead,” Altair said down to the paper. “Do not bother yourself with details. He did not return from his mission and you fear he may not have survived.” Then he turned away from the counter and looked at his novices. 

Mary got up from her seat and motioned at it. “Come,” she said, “sit and speak to us.”

\--

Altair told them of Masyaf, of being an assassin and of his master who had betrayed him. He did not tell them of his personal history (but he did not have to, they were all exactly as he was: used and damaged by the life they were born into) or about his marriage to Malik.

They listened, polite and quiet, to his every word.

“I will fight with you,” Aaron said without a moment of pause. “All of my life, no man or woman has ever defended me. No person has ever seen me as anything but a vessel for another man’s pleasure. I will fight with you, however you have need of me.”

“I will as well,” Dinah said.

“I will,” Peninah agreed.

Mary was weary with pink in her face. She said, “I have no better vocation.”

Altair did not have the heart to tell them that he would lead them straight to their deaths. Their allegiance was a fragile hope that they might succeed to give them a life away from this city and the many evils it had done to them. He nodded his understanding and thanks.

\--

It was an awkward half-realized relief and disgust when Altair vomited the entirety of his supper later in the evening. Nidal’s pretty-faced-wife had made enough to feed everyone. She was also in the outer room to see Altair trying and failing to keep it in his stomach. Rather than being offended, she softened at the realization. “Is it your first?” she asked quietly.

The first that would survive. “The first that has lasted so long,” he said instead. He wiped his mouth and grimaced distastefully at the vomit. It was already dark and his whole body was stiff and unhappy at his continued insistence on moving. Still he took the pot and climbed out of the bureau to leave it on the roof where the smell wouldn’t be so noxious in the confined space already made unpleasant by so many bodies.

Mary was sitting on the roof, far enough away from the edge that she wouldn’t be visible from the street but close enough that she could duck into the entrance at a moment’s notice. She seemed amused by his pot of puke as he set it on the corner of the roof and came back to sit at her side. “I had a daughter once,” she said by way of conversation. “My husband did not care for a daughter. He smothered her when she was only a day old. It was the only child whose face I was able to see. The others—he took them from me before I could even hold them.”

There was simply nothing to say to such a tragedy. Altair looked at the raw meat of his knuckles instead, the bruises and broken skin. There were two stitches holding together a tear in the top of his left hand. 

“What of your children?”

“I killed them,” Altair said. He owed her honesty in repayment for her faith in his cause. He looked at her face and could not explain why he thought he might see something besides the deadness in her eyes. “I could not have loved them even if I hadn’t.”

“Better they die quickly than wither from lack of love,” Mary said. “But this one? This debt you owe, you could love it?”

Altair let a breath out and then shrugged. “If he survives, he will have earned both my love and my respect.”

Mary looked at his body, at how tight and uncomfortable he was in his own aching skin. “I could rub your shoulders if your husband would not take it as too great an offense. Aaron wanted to offer but I did not know how Malik would react so I told him not to.”

“I do not know either,” Altair said. And in any case, he did not want to be touched. The pain was bearable but the thought of hands on him was not. So they lapsed into silence and watched the sun falling below the horizon and the haze of heat faded to the cool of night. The city seemed to lull into a dull sound all around them before Altair got to his feet to retreat to his bed for the night.

Mary said, “the man, Abbas, was he a friend or a lover?”

Altair was on his feet, crouching by the bureau’s entrance when she asked. The question seemed to have been plaguing her the whole of the day because it was said with urgency just before it was simply too late to ask. “He was my friend once. He was not when he died.” Then he jumped down and regretted the choice as soon as the landing jostled his already sore body. 

\--

Malik was already in their bed when he got there. Altair went and laid next to him. He rested his hand across Malik’s chest and waited for Malik’s hand to cover his. It did not, but grip softly at his wrist above the worst of the damage he had done to himself.

“Will you help to train them?” Altair whispered. 

“I will,” Malik said just as quietly. “Sleep now, while there is time.”

\--&\--

Jerusalem, absent its leader (even one as corrupt and unlikeable as Majd Addin) had reached a feverish point of instability. All around the bureau the raving of its people (trapped in place) was a thundering reminder of the chaos that they had created with their actions. 

\--

The informants did not return on the second day. Altair’s novices went out in the morning to fetch supplies enough to feed the many people that had taken up living in the cramped bureau. All save for the boy who stayed behind (small and frightened looking) hovering just beyond the counter. 

For the second (unbelievable) day in a row, Altair had simply gone back to sleep when Malik woke for the day. Nidal and his wife were huddled together in the other room. Nidal was sitting up (with obvious pain) and his wife was tending his bandages and cleaning his wounds by the fountain. Their child was patient and worried even when she peeked around the doorway to see Malik behind the counter. 

“What?” Malik asked when he could not stand the boy’s hesitancy a moment longer.

“If I offered to rub Altair’s shoulders, would it offend you?” the boy asked.

They meant to wage war on Masyaf itself, to find and kill the mentor of the assassins who possessed a weapon of great but unknown power and they were a meager band of misfits comprised mostly of novices that could not properly hold a sword and this child was worried over etiquette. It was ludicrous. Malik only barely managed to keep from laughing in the boy’s face. “It would not. However, he will not allow it.” 

Aaron frowned at the notion. Either he was incapable of deducing the truth of Altair’s past (something that the three older women seemed to have little trouble grasping) or he did not have the ability to full understand what it meant. He was unsatisfied with the answer but he ducked his head in polite thanks and accepted it anyway.

\--

Before the midday meal, Malik collected his new messages. The Rafiq in Acre sent him a short message to tell him of the death of a man named William of Montferrat. The name was largely meaningless to him and there was no reason to expect that Altair would know this man by his name when he had not known any of the others. It was only useful knowledge to have that another of the conspirators was dead.

Altair was awake when he returned from gathering the messages. He was carefully barricaded from the attention of his novices by the counter that stood like a great wall between them. The color in his face had returned to normal and his hands (while still clearly painful) were far better than they had been the day before. He fed himself with less obvious distress and seemed less burdened by exhaustion. 

“What news?” Altair asked him when he dropped his messages on the counter.

“Another man is dead.” Then, because it seemed appropriate to explain the matter fully, he told him of William of Montferrat and his quick death in Acre. “That is six men. I do not know what will happen when Rashid has finished eliminating the men he once called allies.”

“There will be nobody left that knows of his treasure,” Altair said. But just as easy as it was to think such a thing was, “except us.”

“We must work quickly,” Malik agreed. “We will not be safe here much longer.” He rubbed at his neck—stress, not pain—and looked at the novices waiting for some instruction. They seemed gawky and awkward, too thin and unhealthy to be useful. And yet they had proven themselves. 

“Fight me,” Altair said.

Malik only barely kept from scoffing at the notion. “Are you able?” he asked instead. It was the wrong choice of words. Men had suffered worst that questioned Altair’s abilities. He knew his mistake as soon as the muscle twitched in Altair’s jaw. “Very well,” he said with a sigh. “We will use the wooden swords.” Then he went to get them.

\--

They moved to the outer room, where the light was the brightest. The novices moved Nidal to the interior room. His wife went with him but the child hovered in the doorway with wide-wide eyes and a desperate interest in whatever was so captivating to so many adults. Malik left his Rafiq’ robe laying across the counter and stood across a narrow space from Altair (both of them dressed as assassins) and watched the blank-stone of his face despite the almost assured pain that holding the sword brought. 

“Watch Malik,” Altair said to his novices. “Try to remember every move he makes. Where he puts his feet and how he controls the movements of his body.” These were things that Altair had never excelled at. His own style of fighting had been perfected in brawls with the other boys outside of the ring. He had not learned to perfect the arm of sword fighting as a matter of art but as an essential part of survival. 

The fight was brief. Altair suffered from lagging exhaustion and obvious weaknesses. The sword, when struck, jostled his sore hands and Malik exploited it shamelessly. He put himself in the position to push Altair into using extreme force. The match ended when Altair could not hold his weapon any longer and it clattered to the floor.

Malik dropped his own sword and moved close enough to inspect the fresh damage done to Altair’s hands. There was a slow seep of fresh blood under the scabs but the stitches held on the left hand and there was no immediate swelling. His thumb felt abrasive across the fragile broken skin and his hand seemed too clumsy as he lifted the right and then left hand to check them. Altair tolerated it with watchful eyes.

“I am well,” he said.

“You would not say otherwise even if it were true,” Malik retorted. “Name one of your novices.”

Altair spared him a glance of derision at being called a liar and then motioned Peninah forward. “Do not underestimate your opponent,” he said to them. He sat near the wall with his legs crossed in front of him and his hands resting palms-up against his legs. 

Peninah picked up the sword and took the place that Altair had abandoned. “I am not as strong as you.”

“Then you must be faster,” Malik said. He gave her a moment to contemplate this advice, corrected her stance and the way she held her sword, and then attacked.

\--

The lessons continued until the shadows were long and dark. The last bit of sunlight was still in the sky when Mary—breathing hard from exertion and furiously pink with embarrassed defeat—straightened her body to its full height. She wiped sweat off her forehead and brought her sword up on weak arms. 

“Again,” she said.

Malik’s clothing was soaked with sweat from the heat of the day and the repeated trials. Altair was watching him with a placid expression of expectation and interest while the other novices were coping with their own fresh wounds and deflated egos. Malik had fought each of them (repeatedly) and had not lost once. He set his sword down long enough to get a drink of water and then returned and nodded at Mary.

When she came, she meant to kill him. It was like some last bit of resolve snapping and a pleasant slip of fear went through his body at the realization. The others had attacked him politely. They had humored him with their assaults but they were conscious and wary of his obvious physical (so-called) disadvantage. The boy, Aaron, had not seemed to be able to move beyond it. 

Mary did not care when she fought him for the right to remove his head.

Malik disarmed her in a moment of luck, not skill, and she was furious with him in a way that brought something like life back into her flat expression. “That was good,” he said. “We will do it again tomorrow.”

He expected anger but she seemed pleased by the words and nodded her thanks.

\--

Alone, in their room, Malik’s could not find a position to lay comfortably and Altair (with a sigh) lit a lamp and harassed him into sitting up. Altair sat behind him as he rubbed at the sore places on his shoulders and down his back. 

“You should not,” Malik had said when he realized Altair’s intent.

“I will anyway,” was the retort. It was not the most thorough of massages but it was efficient and effective. When Altair had finished worrying out the sore places, his hands were still warm and unashamedly pressed against Malik’s shoulders. 

Malik was staring at his own lap, the puddle of blankets covering his knees still, thinking about nothing but the enormity of the decisions still left unmade. His head was foggy for want of sleep and without the sharp pains keeping him in a focuses state of full alertness, he found himself drifting in and out of a stupor. He put his hand across Altair’s over his shoulder and traced his finger across the puckered skin beneath the stitches and down to the blunt, blank space where Altair’s ring finger had once been. “I would do the same for you,” he said.

Altair did not flinch away from his grasp but the words did not provide him any comfort either. He hesitated a moment before slipping his hand out from under Malik’s. He moved so he was sitting next to Malik, close enough they could see one another’s faces and their bodies could lean one-against-the-other (shoulder-to-shoulder). “Tomorrow, I must search for the informants. If we are to heal the damage done to our brotherhood, we cannot turn our back on our brothers. I will be well enough to go. You must stay and train our novices.”

“Will you be able—truly able?” Malik asked. 

There was no way to know such a thing for sure and yet Altair nodded. Then, as if the thought were unhappily prodded out of place, he said, “you can ask for sex when you want it so long as I still have the right to deny you.”

“I do not want sex,” Malik said. 

“Then why would you offer to rub my shoulders?” 

Malik could have attempted to explain the idea to Altair (perhaps for years) but there were no words to explain something that he should have learned in his youth. There were no words to encompass the expanding feeling of hopeless _desperate_ desire for Altair to truly know some measure of _comfort_ and _safety_. (There was one word, wasn’t there. At least one.) Instead of attempting to explain it, he cupped his hand around Altair’s neck and pressed their foreheads together. Altair’s breath was a hot ghost against his cheek and he allowed the touch with generosity. It was Malik that pulled back first. “Why would you rub mine?”

Altair was still looking at him with confusion when he said. “We should sleep.”

\--

The morning left his bed empty. Altair had already gotten up, spoken to Nidal (according to his wife) and left. The novices were angry to be left behind. Malik washed his face and neck in the fountain while the stewed about how they had been forbidden to follow their master out in to the world. 

After breakfast, Malik resumed training the young novices. They either excelled at rapid improvement or they had spent the night practicing. Peninah (easily the best swordsman) was technically the best, Dinah was the fastest at improvising, Aaron was the most skittish at delivering obvious-and-easy counter attacks and Mary was the most brutal and unapologetic. 

They practiced for hours, taking turns fighting one another and Malik. The clang of their wooden swords was a dull roar echoing around in the bureau. The scuffle of their bare feet a hiss across the dirt. Malik crouched and watched and offered criticism when it was relevant. 

In the afternoon, the let them eat and rest while he looked for messages. Altair had still not returned as the day dragged on. The heat seemed ominous oozing through the open grate, the simmer of sunshine seemed equally damning. 

“The mark on your shoulder,” Mary said while the others dozed on the planks over their heads. Nidal was resting but his pretty wife and child were alert to the sudden sound of voices. “My Mother had many. She was fond of them, she rubbed them when she was happy and spoke freely about the joy her marriage had brought. The passion she had for her husband.” Mary’s whole body was a litter of scars of varying depths. “I hate mine. I would not have allowed it if I had the power to deny it. What of you?”

Malik did not often think of the scar on his shoulder. He did not reminisce about the fever he spent with Altair (often) or the pleased-pink-smile on his wife’s face after he’d tore into Malik’s skin with his teeth. It was not a memory that brought pride or passion to his mind but the same lingering shame (for his own behavior) and uncertainty (for the future). The mark had offended him. It was a mark meant for an omega and Malik was not one. Asked so bluntly, he found himself without an answer and fumbled through an attempt. “I— I do not think about it.”

“What will men think of you when they see it?” Mary questioned. “What will you say when they question your masculinity? What will you do when they prod you with laughter?”

This question was easier to answer, at least. “First, I will teach them the manners they lack. Then I will educate them about the things they do not understand.”

Mary smiled—faint and fleeting. “Perhaps you are a man I could respect.” Then she turned away and left him. 

\--

It was late before Altair returned. He came with heavy footsteps and a weary face. His arrival announced primarily by how he failed to stay on his feet and wound up falling on his ass in the outer room. Either through defeat or lack of pride, he wilted so he was lying flat on his back with his knees bent and his arms spread out at his sides. 

The novices were hesitant to go and speak with him. Either because they were unsure of their welcome to this moment of failure or because they did not know how to act around Malik. He went in their stead, out to stand by Altair as he lay under the darkening sky looking upward through the still open grate of the bureau. 

“I found them,” Altair said. There was a curious lack of shame at his current weakness that seemed off-kilter (completely) from the man he had been only eight-short-months ago. “I will tell you where to find them, and you can go free them. I gave them food and fresh water but did not trust they would not misunderstand my intent. They are safe for now.” 

“Very well,” Malik said. He motioned at Altair’s whole body. “What of this?”

“It seems your son is as exhausting as his father,” Altair said. He got to his feet with obvious effort and dusted the dirt off his clothes before a yawn interrupted his attempts to look severe. “Is there food?”

“I will find some,” Malik said. Then he motioned Altair back toward their room, closed the bureau’s entrance, and followed after his back until they were safely hidden from the outer room and the many eyes and ears there observing them. He brought Altair food and found the man stripped half naked with one hand rubbing at his chest as if it pained him. “Should I apologize?”

“Only if you are sorry to have a son,” Altair said. “These discomforts will pass.” He took the food he was offered with a nod of thanks and ate it gratefully. “How did my novices fare?”

Malik told him of the day. When he reached a point of pausing he said, “can I rub your shoulders?”

Altair woke up enough from his agreeable stupor to eye him with great suspicion. His face drew into a hard frown as if he has tasted something undesirable. And then he only sighed. “My shoulders do not trouble me. If it would give you some measure of peace, you could try to do something here.” He motioned at his upper right arm. 

Malik sat next to him and did a poor job at easing away the ache. Altair resumed eating, Malik resumed telling him of each of the novices’ strengths and what progress Nidal had made over the course of the day. 

\--

Sleep came easily to Altair that night. But it toyed with Malik long into the night. It flirted with him and then abandoned him at the very last moment. His head was filled with half-thought things about their future. When he finally managed a deep enough exhaustion to fall into a groggy sleep, he woke early to the sound of Altair moving fitfully at his side.

The man was not sleeping and thus not plagued by a nightmare, but stripped off the majority of his clothing and sat up with one hand rubbing at the back of his neck. His eyes were closed in the strained light of dawn. “You make a strange noise when you wake up,” he said. His voice was a drone of half-managed sleep. 

“What is wrong?”

“I was hot.” Altair laid back down. He was asleep again in a matter of minutes.

\--

Rescuing the informants was an easy enough task. He memorized the path that Altair gave him and went without incident through the streets to where the informants were barricaded into a single roomed home. They were dusty from lack of washing and hungry from limited food. What little food they did have had come from Altair the day before (an unknown benefactor as far as they were concerned). 

Malik freed them with minimal effort.

“What has happened?” they asked.

“Abbas trapped us here.” They explained.

Malik sent them all back to Nidal at the bureau, warned them to be discreet and to wait for his return before attempting to enter. They left with unanswered questions but loyal obedience. He did not follow but let his feet take him to his brother’s grave—unrecognizable as anything but another patch of dirt—and stood with his shadow stretched across the resting place of his baby brother. A conflict of things robbed him of enough words to explain himself.

Eight months ago (give or take a matter of lost weeks and days) Malik had woken up with bloody hatred in his mouth and the absolute certainty that Altair’s-arrogance-had-killed his baby brother. He had wallowed in his pettiness as long as he could manage and even after he was shocked out of his despicable behavior, the fact remained that some part of him still blamed Altair for what had happened. 

Perhaps, part of him always would. Kadar’s death was too closely entwined with Altair’s actions to remove one from the other. Regardless of the greater scope of things, anger still stirred in Malik’s belly when he stumbled across the thought.

(And out here, where it was safe to say,) “I love him.” The words were as much a betrayal as they were a hollow triumph. Malik had never wanted to love Altair. He had only ever wanted to possess him, to trap and confine him. Malik had _longed_ to use him as he was meant to be _used_. He _had_ done as much in those early days and the victory was empty and unsatisfying. 

There was greater joy in the hard won press of Altair’s hand to his chest in the middle of the night than there had ever been in his life before. It was a sacred gift, hesitantly given, and preciously fragile. The _weight_ of the responsibility of accepting such a thing was monumentally heavy and yet the effort made him feel as if he were made of air.

“Forgive me,” he said to his brother. It seemed worthless to apologize to Kadar who would have only laughed at him for arriving at such an obvious conclusion. His brother would have waved away his attempts at solemnity. Malik was only apologizing for his own benefit; only apologizing to the man he had once been. 

\--

When he returned to the bureau, the informants followed him inside and stood with Altair’s novices. They listened to the story of Rashid’s betrayal with quiet disbelief that easily slid into understanding. They accepted their new brothers without protest and asked only what could be done to further their cause.

“Robert De Sable is coming to Jerusalem,” Altair said. He had stood silently behind the counter as Malik spoke. “We must know where he is and what plans he has in this city.” His face was stone (as ever) and his tone was blank. “He will know what weapon Rashid has and how he intends to use it against our brothers. Rest tonight and search the city for what there is to know.”

His words were received like orders.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha! y'all thought you weren't going to get another chapter this soon didn't you?

The aggressive exhaustion did not give but Altair forced himself out of bed regardless. Denied the sleep his body so violently craved, he was sluggish with pain. Even that was ineffective against the sudden rush of urgency that seemed to come from every side. There had been no message from Masyaf in the many days since Malik sent word of Abbas’ death.

Another target had been eliminated in Damascus. The short message Malik received on the matter named him as Jubair and only mentioned that he had been using the scholars to incite the citizens (to what end remained a confusing mystery). The number of deaths was now numbered at seven and each of them could be easily found in Robert’s journal. 

Altair sat and read it while Malik worked with Aaron in the outer room. He could hear the words they were exchanging but was not listening with enough intent to discern the shape of the conversation. It had been a mutual decision (among the novices) to keep Aaron trapped in the bureau. He was quick on his feet but his father and his future husband would likely kill him if they found him out in the city.

Absorbed in the journal, Altair searched for some greater meaning for the many betrayals contained inside.

\--

Malik relented before Aaron begged for mercy. His face (impressive with emotion) was caught between an expression of sour hatred and intolerant pity. The very tilt of his eyebrows seemed to condemn Aaron to a quick death in any actual conflict. He slammed the sword on the countertop with a bitter finality. 

“You lack patience,” Altair said. He slapped the book shut and picked up the sword as he got to his feet again. Nidal’s pretty wife was watching him with a worried expression on her face but her husband (still covered in yellowing bruises) seemed to understand and approve of what Altair meant to do. He went through the doorway to where Aaron was wiping sweat off his forehead, his sword dropped on the ground. Altair pointed the wooden blade at him, “pick it up.”

Aaron was _afraid_ of him in a way that he could not force himself to be afraid of Malik. Whatever he thought of Altair’s husband, he underestimated him and the constant caution was cracking Malik’s resolve to train the boy. 

Simply put, Malik was too kind-hearted. The men that would kill Aaron would not suffer the same dilemma. Altair only waited for the boy to have his hand around the hilt of his blade before he attacked him. His aim was to injure him in a brief and superficial manner. The flurry of his attacks made Aaron cry out in shock and some inner sense of self-preservation forced him into motion. Even with his life clearly threatened, the boy could hardly manage to defend himself.

Altair kicked him into a wall, watched his back hit it and the shock of pain knock him to the ground. He walked over to look down at him and pressed the tip of the sword against the hollow at the base of his throat. “Learn or die,” he said. Then he slapped the flat of the blade against his cheek. “Get up, again.”

“This is not patience,” Malik stated from the doorway. He came over and took the sword from Altair. “If I knew we were only going to humiliate and injure the boy I would have done it myself.” Clearly, he disapproved of Altair’s methods. But their childhood was made of such things, Altair’s exacting vengeance and Malik’s inevitable failure. 

“Then do it,” Aaron said when he was on his feet again. “I would rather suffer humiliation than death.” He wiped blood away from his mouth and stood opposite Malik.

\--

Information came back to them in degrees.

Peninah and Dinah returned with news of a funeral for Majd Addin scheduled several days away. They spoke of it as if the city would mourn their loss and attend in honor of a madman who slaughtered whoever he pleased. (Doubtlessly, the city and the ignorant men in it would miss their master.)

Mary had heard that many Templar Knights had arrived in the city, that they were an obnoxious presence in the streets. She encountered three in a single day—far more than the usual number—and heard from others that there were even more than that. 

The informants came with the most troubling news. That Robert would attend the funeral. It was a shrewd move for a member of the Crusader army (a Templar Knight, no less) to deceive the public into believing he meant to pay respect to a Saracen leader. The idea was too preposterous to have come from King Richard. It was simply too close to the duality of character contained in the journal.

Robert De Sable was a man of lofty ideals willing to sacrifice all of them to reach his goal. 

Altair thanked them for the information they brought him. He sent them away to find food and rest and sat behind the counter staring at the map with pebbles set where the Templars had been seen. He rested his elbow on the journal and his chin in his hand and pulled apart this information again-and-again.

\--

Inside the safety of their four walls, Malik was smiling over his well-earned bruises. He came to join Altair on their bed with a lightness in his face that was a relief after the storm of only earlier that morning.

“What troubles you?” Malik asked him. They sat face one another with their knees only just barely avoiding touching. He took note of the journal tucked to the side and how Altair had moved the sword to the side closest to the wall.

“What if the Templars are not truly a part of the Crusader’s army? What if they are hidden inside of the Crusader ranks the way Rashid has hidden himself among us? As Abbas was hidden among our brothers? What purpose does Robert De Sable have in coming here? What purpose does he have in pretending to be part of a cause that he does not support?” He picked up the journal. “He speaks of peace, yet he does not act as a man who wants it.”

“He does not,” Malik agreed.

“The men that joined Rashid and Robert in finding the treasure were men from both sides of this conflict. They were separated by beliefs and allegiance and yet united by their hope for peace.” It was the sort of thing that would drive a man mad if he spent too long trying to imagine it. 

“Do the answers to these questions change the nature of our mission?” Malik asked. The words were oh-so-cautious. 

Altair sighed. “Our part in this plan was insignificant. I was only a means to forge a partnership, your death was only meant to be proof of loyalty. What greater purpose was there? How can these men who caused such damage to the people under their care and command claim to want peace?”

“Men lie,” Malik said. “It is the nature of humanity to be inherently flawed. We are each imperfect and capable of terrible deeds. These men may believe they search for peace and work to ensure it but it does not mean that it is the truth. Is this what truly troubles you? That we may never know their purpose in behaving as they have?”

No. It was not so simple. Robert De Sable would die for the crimes he had committed. He would die for the atrocities he had committed. These things were certain but there was some unknown variable that Altair could sense but not define. He relented and dropped the journal to the side. “I must try to find Robert De Sable before the funeral. It would be a fitting place to end his life but not one conducive to the questions that must be asked. Tomorrow we will send our men into the city to see if they can track him down. Perhaps I could persuade one of his men to give his location.”

“Persuasion was never an art you excelled at,” Malik said. 

“Ha,” Altair said in return.

Malik smiled at him and it was much the same as his pride of his new bruises. They were patches of darkness just under his skin, faint in the poor light of their bedroom. His face was scruffy from lack of care and he looked genuinely tired. Yet, with such a fondness on his face, he was handsome. His pink tongue went across his lips and he looked as if he were about to say something (perhaps ask for something) but Altair interrupted his attempt. 

“We should sleep while there is time,” Altair said.

A faint disappointment blushed across Malik’s face but he nodded his acceptance.

\--

In the morning, Malik woke with a grimace and the same embarrassed arousal that had often plagued him. He moved to deal with it himself (as he often did since Altair told him to do so) but Altair stayed his hand.

“It may be some time before we have this chance again,” Altair said. He did not move to climb on top of Malik but pulled him up onto his knees and in between Altair’s thighs. “But quietly,” Altair said when Malik was pressing hard-and-insistently into him. Malik nodded his head as he balanced his weight on his elbow and slid his hand under Altair’s back. 

Malik kissed his neck and rested his forehead against Altair’s shoulder as he rocked into him. His abortive noises of appreciation were muffled against Altair’s skin. There was no space between them, the suffocating closeness was tolerable with his own hands pulling at Malik’s back and his legs around his body. He pressed his teeth against the salty skin of Malik’s shoulder and just barely heard the hitch of his husband’s breath.

“Do it if you want,” Malik said against his cheek. Altair did not question the hastily given permission but tightened his hands as he dug his teeth into Malik’s fragile skin just enough to taste the slow seep of his blood. Oh-and-the noise that Malik made was so terribly _fragile_. 

\--

The city was teetering on an edge of chaos. The men and women that walked its streets were divided on Robert’s intentions with coming to Majd Addin’s funeral. While they could not agree about what the Templar’s purpose was, they were united in their sorrow for their lost leader. Altair listened to their outlandish descriptions of his killer and restrained the urge to spit at them for their ignorance. 

The killer had escaped.

The killer had never been discovered.

Altair had left the body of Majd Addin’s killer in an empty, crumbling building to be gnawed at by wild animals and discovered by any number of possible persons. If the guards were incapable of finding and correctly deducing Abbas’ identity (or just his crimes) they were truly the most ignorant and useless of men. 

He made his way through the streets toward the corners where Templars had been seen, searching for one that had any information worth extracting. He had no luck with the first two locations and spent a while lazing around on benches watching men come and go before he bothered to searching again.

\--

The Templar was not a massive man but petite beneath his uniform. Altair found him around a blind turn, was surprised by the aggressive attack and still managed to subdue the surprisingly small bastard. He had him pinned to a roof, just behind a half-wall with bare wooden beams stripped naked by sun and rain. The man spit French at him with a hateful vehemence as Altair pressed a knee into his stomach and held a knife to his throat. 

“Be still,” he said.

“Kill me, Assassin, I will give you nothing.”

Altair had heard such brave words from men before. He disregarded them and considered his options. His hands were still not fully recovered from the last man he had punched (and thus hitting this man until he gave seemed a bit like torturing himself). The day was too hot and Altair was burdened with uncomfortable aches and exhaustion. His patience had run thin in the scuffle. “Very well,” he said to the man’s request. “If that is what you wish.”

The Frenchman was a paradox of pleased and shocked-white when Altair opened his gut from one hipbone to the other. The tear of his clothing and skin was an audible rip that turned wet-and-slushy with the bulge of his pink-and-gray intestines. The man’s little hands were clutching at his slippery guts as Altair pushed himself upward.

“You should be dead in two days, perhaps three if you possess a strong constitution.” Altair turned to walk away from him, listened to the cries of distress the man made. He was crouching at the edge of the building, listening to the aborted attempts the man made to rise and the inevitable failure as he collapsed back in place. Only once, he looked back over his shoulder to see the Frenchman staring at the loop of intestines caught around his fingers. 

“Your kind was meant to be skilled! You must be a poor assassin to kill me this way,” he shouted.

Altair turned on the balls of his feet and regarded him as the idiot he was. “I am a very skilled assassin. I cut you only deep enough to let you suffer. I did not puncture your organs but you will die regardless. I could be persuaded to provide you a more suitable death if you had information for me.”

The Frenchman was spotty in the face and breathing shallow-and-quick. His skin was flushed with a sudden wetness. Loyalty kept his tongue still in his mouth and Altair could appreciate the effort even if it interfered with his own mission. 

“Then I will go,” Altair said. He left the man there, went to find a meal from the vendors who sold such things, and spent a few hours on the benches watching men come and go. He thought of Robert De Sable’s part in Rashid’s plot to betray the assassins, and of Robert’s part in the Crusades. He dissected what he knew of the war and still found no answers. 

When he went back to where he’d left the Frenchman, he found him in a pathetic attempt to crawl to his freedom. His guts were a long drag across the roof, filthy now with crusted dirt and drying even as blood pulsed just under the fragile flesh that contained the waste of his body. The man had passed out in the attempt and Altair revived him with a hard slap on his cheek.

“Will you talk?” he asked as he crouched at the man’s side.

The man looked at him as a savior, not a demon, and nodded his head.

\--&\--

Mary was smirking at him while he tried to clean the wound on his right shoulder. The task was difficult enough without her abrasive amusement. Aaron seemed confused by (but disapproved of) her obvious happiness and Malik’s fresh wound. 

“I would help you,” Mary said. “I used to be good at such things.”

Malik relented because he wished to be finished tending the wound before any others could come and gawk at the fresh, bleeding wound he had earned only that morning. Mary came to stand next to him behind the counter and motioned for him to sit. She was simply not tall enough to have a clear view of the wound. 

“You are offended,” Mary said. “You are not proud of this, you do not want others to see it.”

The words sounded very much like Altair’s had once when he had said, _I will give you what the law commands but if I hear you speak of what you do to me in your bed they will be your last words_ (or something similar to that). Malik licked his lips and looked at the ragged, poorly cared for counter rather than watch her dribble the vinegar over the wound. 

“It is not what I am accustom to expecting,” Malik said. “Is that so great a crime?”

Mary made an assessing noise. She was not kind as she scrubbed the bite. Like the man she had chosen to follow, she lacked mercy. “It is only a crime if you do not adapt. Did you allow or invite this?”

“I do not speak of it,” Malik said.

“For your benefit or his?” Mary asked. She picked up a fresh bandage and dabbed the wound dry. There was no way to bind it that would not be more of a bother than necessary. So she held the bandage pressed over the wound, pushed down hard to staunch the flow of blood and waited for his answer.

“I do not speak of it,” he said again. When he turned his head far enough to look at her, she seemed to approve of him. It was meaningless approval from a woman he had no reason to care for. 

\--

Altair did not return until almost dark. He spoke to Nidal and his wife briefly and handed them a sack of something that seemed to delight them (some treat, perhaps) and then continued in toward his novices and Malik who had finished the meal they’d delayed as long as they could manage. He accepted his own dinner and ate it while he listened to what news the novices had gathered.

“You have done well,” he told them. “Have you been practicing?”

They took turns informing him of their accomplishments. He listened to each but did not congratulate them. He questioned them on their weaknesses and advised them on how to achieve greater success. 

\--

They were only barely in the room when Altair said, “the funeral is a trap. Robert is not in Jerusalem at all. I do not know where he has gone but I know where the decoy he sent to keep us from finding him is hiding.”

Malik did not have time to think of a reply.

“We will sleep a bit and go to find the decoy when it is dark and we are not expected. Whatever he has to say, it is best if we are both present to hear the words together.” Altair was already preparing himself for bed. His weapons were laid out where they could be easily picked up and carried out. 

“How long do we have to sleep?” Malik asked.

“A few hours, I will wake you.” He was already stretching out on their bed (as if it were so easy) and looking up at him with expectation. Clearly, Malik should not take so long to prepare himself for sleep. Perhaps just to maintain the expression of near hostile impatient on Altair’s face, Malik did not rush through preparing himself for sleep and being woken up to sneak-and-attack some unknown opponent.

\--

True to his word, Altair woke him up in the middle of a sound sleep with one hand on his shoulder shaking him to full alertness. He was already fully dressed with all his weapons in place. “Prepare yourself, I am going to wake the others.”

“Why?” Malik asked.

“When we find where Robert has gone, we must move quickly. They will need to be prepared to close the bureau and follow us wherever we must go. I will send Aaron to fetch the informants so they are all here when we have need of them.” Then he was rising to go. 

Malik got up and ready as quickly as he could. He found Altair in the outer room, securing the grate open as he relayed instructions to Mary about what to pack and where the clothing they should wear was located. She nodded her head when he finished and said, “safety and peace—that is what you say, is it not?”

“Yes,” Altair assured her. “Safety and peace to you as well.” 

\--

The city was black with sleep. Altair was a light blur across rooftops, moving with stealth and grace that seemed improbable after the exhaustion that dogged him for days. When they reached their goal, Altair paused to study the building they were meant to infiltrate. Malik crouched at his side.

“There are two guards along this side,” he said.

“We can easily manage that,” Altair said. They backtracked far enough to get down on the ground without drawing any notice. The guards were drawn by the sound of a crowing madman and the distraction allowed for their quick and (relatively) painless deaths. The door was then unmanned and Altair opened it and they both went inside. 

There was a single lamp burning on top of a table. The puddle of light was an easy distraction to draw their attention away from the attack that came from Malik’s left. He saw only a blur of movement before he was struck in the side of the face by the hilt-end of a blade. A fresh burst of red agony knocked him over and made his vision hazy-and-wavering. He could not clearly make out the movement in the room and sort out the sounds of grunted effort.

He shook his head with his hand pressed against the swelling knot on the side of his face. A body hit the ground by his and the metal helmet the person had been wearing was thrown across the room. It struck the wall and tumbled to the ground again. Malik was sitting on his ass with one of his legs straight out and one bent as he stared down at a woman’s pale face.

Altair had one hand on her throat and his left hand held menacingly above her face. The extended hidden blade had nicked her cheek but shock (perhaps at finding a woman where he had thought it was a man) had stalled him before he could drive the blade up under her cheekbone and into her brain. 

“Did you expect another?” the woman taunted.

“No,” Altair said. “But I did not expect a woman.” That bit of honesty was ludicrous. 

“How did you find me?” the woman demanded. “You were not supposed to find me.”

“I persuaded a man to tell me. Where is Robert De Sable?” His full weight was leaning forward onto her chest just at the base of her neck. Her ability to breath became labored but she did not look away from his impassive-and-angry face. 

“He knew you would come,” she hissed. “You have ruined our plans.”

Altair backhanded her and she yelped in pain. There was a streak of blood across her face when she looked back at him. He said, “where is Robert?”

“He has devised a way to turn this failure into a success. Your master has been too ambitious. He has taken the lives of too many men, and his greed will allow us to unite Crusaders and Saracens. Our force will be immense and Masyaf will fall.” The words were all venom.

“Speak sense,” Altair said. 

Malik got up to his knees, rubbed at the knot on his head. “How would he unite such opposing forces?”

“Ha,” the woman said. “Each side has suffered losses at the hands of your kind. It does not matter what their differences are, they will unite to remove the assassin stain from this holy land.”

“Where is Robert?” Altair repeated. The strained patience in his voice was as much a threat as a promise. “Where does he go to unite these forces?”

“Arsuf,” the woman said. “When he succeeds, they will march for Masyaf.”

Altair grabbed her head on either side, pulled her up and then bashed her head against the floor hard enough to knock her unconsciousness but not with enough force to kill her. When she went limp, he got to his feet and turned to pick up his fallen weapons. “I have to go after him,” he said.

Malik was on his feet in the next breath. “You cannot go alone,” Malik said.

“Someone must go to Masyaf.” Altair said. “If I show up with news of an invasion from a massive army they will think me mad. Rashid will have me imprisoned or killed. Take the men who are loyal to you, head to Masyaf and I will follow you as soon as I find Robert.”

“You think he will not have me beheaded?” Malik demanded.

Altair rolled his eyes, “I think you will take twice as long to travel with the burden of many men as it will take me to go swiftly alone. Do not doubt me, now. After I eliminate this threat, I will find you at Masyaf and we will take back our brotherhood from the traitor.”

“Go with speed,” Malik said, “safety and peace.”

“Safety and peace,” Altair said. He paused a half-breath to look at the wound on Malik’s head and deciding it was not worthy much worry, nodded his head and swept out through the door. He was running toward the city gates as Malik turned back toward the bureau.

\--

Aaron had been successful in his mission to gather the informants and Mary had gathered the supplies she had been told to prepare. Each of Altair’s novices were dressed in the garb of an assassin, each of them fitting inside of the clothes with comical unease. Aaron seemed to be even smaller in clothes that were simply too large for him. 

Malik did not drop into the bureau but call from the roof, “we are going to Masyaf.”

He stood on the roof as they climbed out, each of them taking a place at his side with grim determination. Nidal stayed inside, standing with the help of his wife. 

“If you do not hear from us, assume we have failed and leave,” Malik said to him. Then he led them all out of the city.


	28. Chapter 28

The shuffling darkness covered Altair’s path through the city. It kept him in shadows as he found a horse and spurred it into a gallop toward Arsuf. Darkness covered his tracks and hid him from the sleepy eyes of the few patrols that were out so late at night but it did nothing to quiet the beat of hooves against the packed, rocky ground.

Darkness did not quiet his thoughts.

\--

It was not Robert that haunted Altair’s mind, but _Rashid_. It was not the knowledge that Robert meant to unite two enemies under the banner of a common goal (against the assassins) that sent a chill of unease down his back. Robert seemed a mere detail; one of many men that were sentenced to die for their part in Rashid’s plan.

Robert was a pawn. His pride sent him crying to his own master, searching for anyone that would believe-and-join him in his quest for vengeance against the enemy he perceived to be responsible for his failures. Clearly intelligent enough to put on a show to benefit the assassin he felt were coming to kill him, but not brave enough to stand and fight for himself. The woman he’d left in his stead had seemed as if she expected to die. Perhaps she had been told that she would and accepted it.

It did not matter. Robert was only a pawn. A man who had agreed to find-and-guard a treasure. He was only one of ten. He was no mastermind but another fool that had believed himself grander and more impressive than he truly was. Another man who had put his trust in Rashid and been betrayed.

Altair slowed the frantic pace of the horse he rode. In the darkness, everything that had seemed so sure to him when he was staring into that woman’s bold and fearless face fell to pieces. He looked back, trying to pick up the path he’d travelled by the displaced air alone. 

Haste had always been his weakness. Urgency had long been his master. Altair had been running for his life since the first moment he could remember, gritting his teeth against the pain in his legs as he ran to _be free_. When he was still young and stupid enough to think freedom could only be found by securing his place as the best of many.  
His Father’s voice was a growl in his memory, the sharp-bite of something painful pinching against his skin. The taste of his hot breath so close to his face it was a fog that had been seared into his taste buds. He remembered everything his Father had ever said to him. He had said:

_you will be nothing_

—but also—

_you are too arrogant to learn_

—and often,

 _you are nothing without your brothers_.

Omar had valued loyalty above-all-else and he’d paid for the foolish belief with his _life_ protecting the life of a true traitor that had never been discovered. Altair had watched his Father hang with that bitter taste in his mouth and the blank feeling of _nothing_ filling up his chest where something ought to have been.

Rashid had slid his arm around him and pulled him along, filled his head with all these _things_ about how-very-great he-could-be and how-strong-he-already-was. Rashid had fed him morsels of affection like bits of cheese and bites of something sweet on his tongue so long that Altair was _blind_. He had followed Rashid wherever he was led, he had obeyed Rashid’s every command even when he’d been compelled to carry himself willingly toward a fate he had fought against since he realized his true sex.

(And _why_? To earn the love-and-respect of a foul-old-man that used him like a toy and stroked his stomach in pride at how _fertile_ his body was. To find somewhere-anywhere safe from the violent haste that drove his life on-and-on without pause.)

Altair was still _blinded_ by the man, still full of his voice and his _wants_. Altair was still rushing headlong-into-another-fight to please the old man. It was not even his own will, not even his own _urgency_ that sent him here. It was not his own idea but the thought of some greater notion that had led him to this place. 

In the dark, by the side of the road, galloping toward his almost certain death. 

Rashid wanted Robert dead. He had wanted all of them dead, perhaps from the very beginning he had already known he would betray them. (Abu’l had said to him, _you are his greatest weapon_ and Altair had dismissed it as nonsense.) 

The horse shifted beneath him; lifted and tossed its head in impatience. Altair rubbed his hand down its neck in reassurance and looked back again toward where he’d come from. He thought of the stupid boy he had been, the one that ran-and-ran-and-ran. He thought of the assassin he had been trained to be, the one that knocked down the other men in the ring and slapped them in the face to the chorus of Abbas’ foul-stream-of-words. 

He thought of the old man, with his arm around his shoulders and their heads ducked together. He thought of his words as they snaked into his ears and slipped inside his pores and filled his whole body with every-little-thing the foul-breathed-old-bastard wanted him to believe. 

\--

Perhaps the longest standing joke at Masyaf was Altair’s aversion to water. He had nearly drown once, as a child, and the experience was so vividly secured in his memory that he could hardly stand the thought of being surrounded by water, much less the actually willingly submerging himself in it. But boys who hated him didn’t care, they catcalled at him in the rain and threw buckets of water on him for sport. 

Abbas had taught him out to swim when they had the opportunity but even the knowledge that he could survive in water (now) did not diminish the utter helplessness of the memory of floating just beneath the surface of the water.

It began to rain just before the sun rose. The horse was moving sluggishly with exhaustion at being pushed so hard and Altair was sore from roughness of the terrain and weary before he had even begun. The rain hit his hood and his hands in spastic, sparse drops until all at once it seemed to come from a seam in the sky and drenched him entirely. 

Were he a man that believed in God, he might have thought he had chosen the wrong route. His godlessness did not remove that doubt from his chest even as he urge the horse on.

\--

It was not a difficult task to locate Malik and his band of half-trained novices. They travelled together like a great white blur. They were wet and tired, moving forward with dutiful speed mindful of the lingering threat of guards that would be curious about the presence of so many omegas with weapons. 

Altair’s own horse was on the verge of collapse so he dismounted and continued on foot—expecting to encounter a village or for Malik to stop to allow his band of poorly-prepared men and women to rest. Walking helped to loosen the tightness of his limbs and the gnawing ache of hunger set in his gut but it did little to alleviate his indecision. 

It did nothing (at all) to help staunch the hemorrhage of inexplicable anger. Walking did not satisfy him and when he could not stand the plodding rising and fall of his own feet a moment longer he _ran_. 

(Ran the way he had always run, fast-and-hard-and-unstoppable.)

The ground was slippery under his feet and the rain—lighter now than before—hit his face at an angle that drove water into his ears and nose. But he ran until he’d gone past the first of the line of horses, and the second and the third—heard Aaron’s shocked noise as he passed—until he’d made it to where Malik had stopped. He meant to stop but Malik was dismounting and Altair was going too fast to stop so they collided and might have fallen if not for the horse they knocked into. 

“What happened?” Malik demanded before they could even sort out their limbs. Their chests were knocked awkwardly together and Malik’s hand was pushing at his neck to look at his face. The concern he felt was an obvious strain on his face. “You could not have found him so quickly, what happened?” His hand was pushing against Altair’s chest and arm and face looking for some inconsistency in his body and finding none. 

“Why would you agree to such a foolish plan?” Altair demanded of him. “All of our lives you have raged at my impetuousness, you have wasted your breath shouting about reason and logic and _planning_. What good does killing Robert do for us? He is one of many Rashid wants dead.”

“He means to raise an army to attack the brotherhood,” Malik said. “He cannot be allowed to—”

“We have routed his army before,” Altair cut in. The certainty that he had lost in isolation by the side of the road far-from-here came back to him like a heated burst in his chest. He put his hand over Malik’s hand against his chest. “We can do it again. Robert does not want a fight against the men of Masyaf, he wants the treasure that was stolen from him. If he comes—we will be there to stop him. He is not _our_ mission.” 

“Protecting the brotherhood is our mission,” Malik said. He did not pull his hand out from under Altair’s but relax in such a way that it was the pressure of Altair’s hand holding his arm in place. The others that had joined them were stopped at intervals making a makeshift perimeter around them. “We cannot neglect the threat that Robert presents.” He looked up at the men that surrounded them. “Ride back,” he said to the first man, “tell Nidal to send word to Acre that we have heard word that Robert De Sable means to raise an army against Masyaf.” He pulled his hand away from Altair to wave it at the man and he turned without pause to go and do as he was commanded. “Doubt has spread like a foul disease through our ranks,” Malik said. “Men who have seen the needless death of boys do not find comfort in the words of their mentor anymore.”

“We must kill Rashid,” Altair said. It was the only _truth_ that he could find in all the black and shadowed uncertainty. 

Water was caught in Malik’s eyelashes, soaking through the layers of their clothes and beating against the ground in a constantly muddy assault. Yet Malik stared at him without blinking as he heard-and-understood the words. Then he nodded. “We will ride for Masayf,” he said. “ _Together._ ” Then he looked at Altair and back at where he’d left the exhausted horse he’d stolen. He frowned at the inconvenience. “Ride with Aaron, he is small enough it will not be too great a burden until we find you a horse you have not nearly killed.”

Altair snorted as he turned and Malik was smiling as he got back on his horse.

\--

Aaron was small enough to tuck under his arm (like a child) but Altair was still glad to have his own mount. The boy breathed a sigh of relief himself, his whole face suffused with red blood and a curious embarrassment making him smile foolishly. Mary saw it and rolled her eyes but Dinah laughed heartily. 

“You are a strange one, Aaron,” she said.

“Do not let his husband see you,” Peninah said.

Altair frowned at all of them and they looked somber and repentant to his face but giggled again as soon as he rode ahead. The sound of their merriment was an odd sound jostling with their purpose along this road. He caught up with Malik and matched the speed of his newly acquired horse with his husband’s. “How will we approach Masyaf?” he asked.

Malik considered the question. “Carefully,” he said at last. He was aware of the uselessness of his answer because sighed. “Think on it and I will think as well. We can decide together.”

\--

The first day passed in a slow trot. They did not find but made a shelter to rest for the night. The informants were helpful in teaching the novices what was needed to make a safe place to sleep out of obvious sight. They made food that was good enough to satisfy the gnawing hunger in his gut.

Malik had gone sour with anger, a quiet and sneaking _fury_ that made his every motion an attack on the world around him. He ate as if he were ripping out the hated throat of his enemy. He walked as if he were stalking a kill. When he sat (at last), he stabbed into the ground to etch an outline of Masyaf—crude and quick—as the very act itself could destroy the castle. 

“Speak,” Altair said when the others had found some manner of keeping themselves busy. He went and crouched at the edge of the churned up mud where he could see the plans Malik was (not) making and his anger red and obvious on his face.

“I have nothing to say,” Malik said. Even the words were bitten curses, terribly violent. His breath drew in through his nose and was pushed out again as he pressed his lips together until they were a thin line. 

“Ha! Our brothers at Masyaf will not recognize us! I turned away from a fight and you have nothing to say.” It was not funny. “If you are angry at me or the decision I made, it is best you say it now while there is still time to correct it. If we go any farther I will not be able to ride back to kill Robert.”

“I do not care about Robert,” Malik said. “I do not care about what our brothers think of us. That is why I am angry. I have spent my life loyal to the creed. I was raised with that sole belief, Altair. To be like my father, to be loyal to our brothers and the creed _first_ above everything else. I abandoned my brother to be an assassin. I gave the whole of my life to it. Yet, they can all die and it will not matter as much to me as the knowledge that you have returned to me.”

“I do not deserve that from any man, much less from you.” It was not humility that drove the words out of his chest. They came compulsively tumbling out of his mouth before he could catch them and his poor attempt at denial made Malik’s eyebrows tighten in a fury even more disastrous than before. “Malik,” he said softly. 

“I expect nothing from you that you would not give willingly,” Malik said with calm civility. “I want nothing that you do not want to give. Regardless, know that I do love you. That the loss of you is a burden I do not wish to bear. I allowed you to go because I have faith that you, better than any man, know the limits of your own ability. I will not tell you what you are capable of.”

Altair looked at the outline of Masyaf (like a scar in the earth) rather than look at Malik. He weighed the words and found no resolution to them. He nodded when he could think of nothing else to offer. 

“Then let us talk of what we will do at Masyaf,” Malik said. “Tomorrow, we will ride until we can see the castle.” 

\--

They slept in shifts, Malik curled beneath his black robe and Altair watching the road for the return of the man they sent or enemies that might happen across them. When it was his turn to sleep, he barely had time to tighten his hand around the scabbard of his sword before he was pulled into sleep by the many complaints of his body.

\--&\--

The novices slept long after the informants woke. Malik sent his men out to find fresh horses in exchange for the ones they’d already taken. The scuffle of their departure woke Altair from the seemingly endless sleep he’d enjoyed far enough into the morning for there to be light. The very sight of the sun offended Altair as he got to his feet and scowled at everything around him. 

“You should have woken me,” he said.

Malik offered him breakfast without addressing his needless complaint. Altair was frowning at him when he took it and walked away to find water or relieve himself or kick rocks (whatever it is he had to walk away to accomplish). He was frowning when he returned. 

Altair was frowning as he woke his novices with sharp kicks and rebukes about the noise they had slept through. He drilled them on their swordsman ship and told them of the physically draining journey they now faced. But their loyalty to him was unshaken by the certainty of the physical torture riding hard for Masyaf would amount to.

\--

The journey was not easy. 

The horses were rode to the point of collapse and abandoned. The novices were wilting in their saddles, stumbling across the ground on their feet with blackened-eyes and sorry limp hands. They did not complain about the aching in their joints or the undoubtedly raw feeling of being reduced to beaten meat by the jolt and jostle of galloping on rocky terrain. 

They ate in the brief catches of time between one set of horses and the next. Altair drove them relentlessly. He offered them only the barest of reassurances as he pushed them back onto their stolen horses.

Darkness bought them a reprieve and the novices collapsed gratefully, too exhausted to bother to eat or make a suitable shelter. 

\--

Malik slept first because Altair could not be persuaded to. He slept because he was exhausted by the journey. He woke to find Altair with a bit of a sash coiled around his fist as he sat with slumped shoulders and obvious exhaustion watching for phantom attacks that would not come. Malik made noise as he approached him, kicked rocks and shuffled to give him time to react before he sat next to him. 

Altair looked at him with nothing but a sliver of moonlight to see by there wasn’t enough light to make out his expression. But Altair let out a breath as if he were unsure if he meant to speak or sigh and then lifted his right hand that had the scrap of scarf still in it. He shook it until it dangled from his grip and Malik held his hand up to take it. 

“What is it?” Malik asked. The fabric was fine, skin-warmed and time worn but still so _fine_ against his rough skin. It was the feeling of his mother’s cheek against his face when he was still a child. He rubbed his thumb across it.

“My Father truly loved my Mother,” Altair said. “He did not love me, but he loved her. This is all that was left of her, he slept with it at night—every night. He held it in his hand while he slept. It used to be big enough to cover your head. He said that it smelled like her hair but I could not smell anything but his sweat on it. I tore it when I was a child, I thought it was important to have something from her.”

Malik closed his hand around it and searched for something to say.

“When my Father died, I felt nothing.” He sighed and got to his feet. Malik looked up at him but he could not make out the shape of Altair’s face when he said, “I wish you did not love me, Malik. I cannot give you what you deserve.” Then he went to lay down. The slight metallic sound of his sword being pulled into place the only sound to hear save for the quick jump of Malik’s heart drumming inside of his skull. 

He closed his eyes and tightened his fingers around the bit of fabric he had been given.

\--

The morning came swiftly. Malik woke the novices before Altair had a chance to rough them up again. He had them stretch and set them to practicing their swordsmanship with tired arms while the informants went to find them horses fresh enough to finish the mad dash toward Masyaf. When everyone was occupied, he went and woke Altair.

He crouched next to him and held the bit of scarf out to give it back. “You made me a promise,” he said when Altair opened his hand reflexively to accept the gift back. “You will not die before you give me a son. I have told you once before that I do not want your apologies. Do not speak to me as if you are walking toward your death. Do not give me gifts that you do not expect to live long enough to need. We have been divided by our lives. Our parents, our teachers, and our prides have kept us at odds as long as either of us can remember. Rashid expected we would devour one another in rage and petty spite. What he will find, instead, is that we have overcome the errors of our youth. When we face him today, we must do so as _one_.”

Altair closed his fingers around the scarf and then brought it up to look at it as if he expected to find some source of the words hidden in its folds. “There is no way to be certain that we won’t die today,” Altair said quietly. He sat up and held the scarf out again. “I want it back.”

“I want to give it back,” Malik said. He took the scarf again. “Get up, be kind to your novices. Do not treat them like they are all going to die today.” Then he stood up.

\--

They rode into Masyaf expecting a traitor’s welcome and found _chaos_ instead. The village was full of men and women talking-and-talking about the assassins, saying they had lost their minds and attacked anyone to approached the castle. 

They scattered in fear at the sight of them in the assassin whites.

“What is happening?” Malik demanded from one man. But he ran with a blanched-white-fear on his face. The informants were asking the same, searching for any man or woman that would pause to speak to them. And yet none would. 

Altair was staring up at the castle. “It is the Apple. Garnier said it had power over men’s minds. Robert wrote of it in his journal. He said that he held the power of God in his hand when he had it. Rashid wanted an army that would obey him blindly and now he has one.”

“That is insane,” Malik said. “I held it in my hand and I felt no such power.”

“Even if you had, you would not have used it,” Altair said. He motioned along the most direct route to the castle. “Let us go then, we will see this insanity for ourselves.” Then to his novices he said, “stay in pairs, stay close.” 

“If these men are mad, what should we do?” Mary asked.

Altair said (tonelessly), “defend yourself, spare their lives if you are able and if you are not: kill them swiftly. They do not deserve to suffer.”


	29. Chapter 29

They were allowed to enter.

Malik said it first. The offended lilt of his voice doing little to cover the unease that made his whole body shiver even beneath the robe. The sweat in his hair from the heat of the day and the mad dash up-and-up the mountainside making the goose-bumps that broke out along the backs of his hands seem out of place. They stood mere feet from the entrance of the castle and Malik stopped short, called him by name—like, “ _Altair_.”

“Yes,” Altair agreed. What else could they do? There were many men watching them now, a great crowd of blank-eyed assassins that had once been their brothers. The blood of others still dripping off the length of Altair’s sword. He kept his body turned toward them, watched the slight sway of their soulless bodies as he thought of what could-be (perhaps should-be) done. “We must.”

Malik turned to the others, stayed them from following and gave a quick order to stay close and intervene only if there was an attack. Then he moved forward. There was no bravery strong enough to hide the fear in his face as they stood together on the threshold looking in at the mindless men that moaned their obedience to a cruel master. 

Altair went first, stepped forward and felt Malik matching his pace just behind him. They wove through the bodies, flinching away from touching them. Every step he took seemed to turn their bodies, the sum of their empty eyes following him as he picked a path trying to imagine where Rashid would have hidden himself in this mockery of a kingdom. 

There was no logic in his choice to turn toward the garden but the gathering dread in his stomach at the inhuman stares that followed him. Nobody stood at the entrance to the garden and from the outside it seemed as if nobody were inside of it at all. If nothing else, it would be a safe place to catch his breath and gather his quickly-scattering thoughts. 

Altair stepped through the gate first, and heard the rattle of noise between one heartbeat and the next. Heard it just soon enough to reach behind him and shove Malik’s body backward. His hand only narrowly missed being hit by the falling gate the way Malik’s feet only just escaped being crushed by the sudden, forceful fall. He watched Malik stumble backward, lose his balance and fall into the center of a crush of bodies that did not look away from Altair once.

They were moving toward him, each of them shuffling across the dirt and stone. Their heads tilted to the side and their mouths open in a droning noise that shivered down his spine. Altair’s hand around the hilt of his sword felt _powerless_ against such a force. 

Malik’s voice was distinguishable to him through a great crowd (any crowd) but most definitely out of the center of a disaster of gray noise. Malik elbowed and shoved at the men that separated them, pushed until he was against the gate. The grip he had around the hilt of his blade loose as he hooked took fingers through the gate and pulled it. The metal shook but it did not give. 

Rashid was not a man to play fair. He had never been predisposed to kindness. The great unraveling of his many lies had only proven that Rashid was merciless and cruel. Altair sighed as he shifted his sword from his right to his left hand and reached through the gate to push his hand against Malik’s chest. “I will distract him,” he said. Then, “remember our mission.”

Malik’s eyes were wide and his teeth were white against the garish heated-hatred that made his lips and face go rosy. He did not drop his weapon but kick the gate. “I will be quick,” he said. Then he turned into the growing crush of bodies blocking the path to the gate and fought his way out toward the others. 

Altair looked at the slack faces of his brothers as he shifted the sword back to his right hand. He walked inward, toward the center of the garden, scanning along the ground and up-around-to the balcony over his head searching for some sight of Rashid.

\--

It wasn’t important, but it was _significant_ to know that Altair-had-loved Rashid the way he could not love his Father. He had loved the man with every grateful fiber of his body at thirteen-years-old when his fate lay in the old man’s hands. 

“I would rather die,” Altair had said to Rashid in the quiet of a private room. “If you cannot allow me to stay as an assassin, show me kindness and kill me. I will not live as some man’s wife.”

Rashid had been pink with emotion when he put his hands on Altair’s still-slim shoulders and touched the childish-slope of his jaw. His eyes were brightest when his thumbs pushed at Altair’s soft cheeks to tip his head up to look at him. And his words (oh, his words slinking in-and-out of Altair’s ears again) had been: “You are the best. Your sex is a minor inconvenience so long as you are devoted to our cause. It will not be easy. The others will never allow you to forget what you are. They will never cease in tormenting you. You must harden your heart against their attacks.”

“I do not care what they say,” Altair said (then). “I am an _assassin_. I can imagine being nothing else.”

And Rashid’s _pride_ had been a soft touch against his face.

\--

“Enough of your games, Rashid! I know what you are.” Altair said. He stepped out into the center of the garden, looked for him and found nothing but a looming shadow that seemed to grow out of the ground itself regardless of the heat-and-strength of the sunlight pouring in from above. The only relief from the gathering dark was a brief spot of light above his head, a twinkle of gold so bright it seemed nearly white. 

“This is no game, Altair,” Rashid said from within the dark. His voice seemed all at once very close and very far away. It was a pressure that closed in around his ears and Altair rose his sword against it as he grit his teeth. “It is true then.” The blackness did not recede but part and Rashid stood on the balcony above him looking down with such-hatred on his face. “You let the fool have you. I thought he had lied. It did not even seem like a convincing lie.” 

“You did not seem unconvinced when you sent Abbas to rid me of the child.” The very world around them seemed to shift, seemed to throw itself in its entirety to the left and Altair could not contain his shout of surprise as he fought against a sudden change in gravity. His limbs would not obey him and the inside of his skull felt as if it were being crushed as he closed his eyes and screamed against it. (The power of the gods.) When he opened his eyes again, Rashid was only a few short feet away from him but his body was frozen in place. 

“You did not expect that I would allow you to keep it, did you?” Rashid asked. “Either he would succeed or you would kill him. I was prepared to accept either outcome even if I did not believe you capable of debasing yourself so greatly as to allow _Malik_ to have you at such a vulnerable time. I cannot imagine what must have happened in Jerusalem.” He was close enough now the smell of his skin and the odor of his breath filled Altair’s senses. One of his hands was gripped tight around the glowing golden ball—the Apple—and the other reached out to grab him by the face. Whatever he saw there did not please him. “You were so promising, Altair. What has become of you?”

“I have seen you for what you are,” Altair said. His hand was as tight as it had been around his sword but he could not compel it to move. If he had only the strength to fight the invisible grip that held him, he could have struck Rashid dead where he stood. It would not have taken much to break the old man. His bones were fragile from age and his skin was thin. “You are a traitor, a man who seeks to elevate himself above all others. And you are a liar that speaks of things he cannot believe in.”

“I am neither. I want peace, as I have always said.”

“You want the world at your feet. You want a kingdom of mindless slaves. That is not peace,” Altair snapped at him. “You want to make a god out of yourself.”

The laughter was forgiving but the grit of Rashid’s teeth was not. “Peace?” he repeated. “Peace is the dream of a naïve man. Peace is not possible—was not possible before this,” he rose the Apple in his hand. “I have made peace with this. There is no fear, no hunger, no questioning. These men are at peace.”

“Those men are slaves,” Altair said. He _pulled_ hard against the invisible force that held him in place and succeeded only in straining uselessly for a freedom he could not attain. The attempt made the insides of his head tighten to the point of dangerous gray-black shadows in his vision. “They are not at peace.”

Rashid’s hand cupped around his face and Altair could not pull away from the touch. He could only endure the scrape of Rashid’s thumb across the bone in his cheek while his every muscle shivered with terrible failure to free him. The harder he fought, the greater the pain in his head. “What would you know of peace?” The words were like a lover’s sweet promise. Rashid’s thumb was pushing at his lip now. “You, who have never felt it? You, who have never even seen it? I hear the hatred in your voice. I can feel it’s _heat_. Did you imagine you would ride into Masyaf and kill me? Did you think I would fall so easily to _you_? I have faced a thousand men worth more than you.”

“Am I not your greatest weapon? Is that not what you told the men you invited to enjoy me? Is that not why you offered me your attention and sent me out to get my vengeance? You thought I would kill them for what they had done. You thought I would do what you wanted of me even after I was free from you.”

“I was not wrong,” Rashid said. He let his hand drag down Altair’s throat, his thumb pushed against the fragile arch of it and then lower, dipping into the hollow at the base of his throat. “You were wrong to think you could be free of me. You slaughtered them. I was pleased to hear how you gutted Abu’l. He was a fat, flower-scented man. You did not complete your mission.”

“My mission ends with your death,” Altair said.

Rashid’s hand was pressed against his chest, the spread of his palm pushing hard against the space over his heart. The grip of his fingertips pressing in painfully and unwelcome. His _laugh_ was a bark of mirth and pity. He tipped his head back and then brought his hand up to slap Altair’s cheek so-very-fondly. “You were always too arrogant. You always thought so highly of yourself. _I_ made you, Altair. I fashioned you into a weapon the way a smith might fashion a sword. I took you from your Father’s home where all your potential was sorely wasted and I set you on the path. You stand before me now only because of what I have done for you! And you think,” his hand grabbed Altair by the jaw as he ducked close enough their faces were nearly touching. “I would allow you to kill me?”

“Regardless of if you allow it or not, I will have your life this day,” Altair said. He clenched his fingers around the hilt of his sword and the pain in his skull was _dizzying_. The terrible light of the ball in Rashid’s hand was making his eyes water and his skin crawl. 

Rashid released him and stepped back. “Your insolence is no longer amusing. I thought—I could bring you back if I relieved you of your burden.” He began to walk as he spoke, a careful pace of steps that took him around-and-behind Altair. “I _expected_ you would find a way to subvert your husband’s wishes, Altair. I chose Malik because I thought you would sooner die than give him what he has spent a lifetime craving.” 

“I—”

He was not given time to speak, Rashid moved with quick steps and a blow like a hammer landing. The immediate and _immense_ pain of being struck with no chance to defend himself spread out like a bloom of heat from his unprotected left side. It drown him, all at once, in a sensation too encompassing to ignore. The release of the constricting tightness of the belt around his waist was only minimally recognizable. Altair was panting when he opened his eyes again and Rashid’s hand was smooth across his ribs.

“Ask my forgiveness,” Rashid said softly.

Altair stared at him. For a moment, (if only that long) his resolve wavered. It was not fear that shifted in his belly but the _sure_ knowledge that there was simply no escape to be had. For a fraction of one moment, he considered giving Rashid the satisfaction that he sought and thought (so quickly it was hardly a thought) the old man would not be swayed from his course. Whatever (final) humiliation he had planned would happen regardless of what Altair chose to do. Altair was incapable of moving his body, incapable of squaring his shoulders and straightening his spine. He could not plant his feet the way he had as a child—stupid and brave when he should have been fearful and obedient—but stand as he had been caught. 

“Ask for mine,” Altair said back. “I will never give it.”

“Do not worry, my boy,” Rashid said to him with one last sweet brush of his leathery-old-fingers across Altair’s face. “I will show you kindness in due time.” 

“I will not show you the same,” Altair hissed at him.

Rashid meant to hit him, balled up his fist and dropped his stare from Altair’s face to his unprotected stomach with a certain _satisfaction_ at the very thought of taking _this_ from him as well. There was a flicker of something that crossed his face when he glanced back at Altair’s face. It was _anger_ , the same look that Malik had followed him around with for _years_. The knowledge that he’d been denied Altair’s fear and hurt. The knowledge that he’d failed. 

There was a flutter of shadow around Rashid that seemed to contract and then expand. In the place of one man, there were two and then three. Then four-five-six of them. They spilled outward from the source, one after another with brittle fists and swords that surrounded him. They were perfect mimics, each of them indistinguishable from the last. Altair knew the man from the mirages only by that steely _hatred_ in his eyes that made his arrogance falter.

Altair did not look away from the man as he stepped forward, didn’t turn his attention to any of the others that surrounded him. He did not spare a glance to acknowledge the fist that was meant to strike him. He stared at Rashid’s face and he smiled, a cruel stretch of his lip curling up at the edges. “Come then, old man. Defeat me while I cannot fight you. That is all you are capable of.”

The pain, when he was struck, was nothing in comparison to the sound of denied rage that tore out of Rashid’s throat. The others—the non-things that surrounded him—moved in quick succession to mirror the motion of their source. They hit him again-and-again, striking at his back and his sides, kicking the backs of his knees to force him down and striking his shoulders and the arch of his ribs as his body folded forward so his hands were against the ground. For the briefest of seconds, the pressure was gone from the inside of his skull.

He did not pause to wonder at this gift or at the freedom of motion this violence had brought him. Rashid’s concentration was broken by his desire to humiliate Altair, he could not hold him in place and beat him simultaneously. Altair had lost his sword, it fell just beyond reach. He reached back to pull his short blade from its sheath and got to his feet with a running-start out of the center of the many unreal things. 

There was not time to assess the damage that had been done. There was barely time to turn and face the first of the many mirrors that attacked him. He was able to duck out of the way of the death blow and counter it with one of his own. The mirage dispersed like a great cloud of smoke.

Fighting all of them was madness. “You are no god, Rashid. You are a coward!”

They all laughed. But only one of them spoke. His voice was quiet but distinct among the shuffle of bodies. “Are you so different? Do you not think yourself above you brothers? Have you not always sought your own goals with no regard for others?”

“Once,” Altair said. He struck at _flesh-and-blood_ and the shadows burst all around them. He rose his blade again and Rashid lifted the apple. The awful glow of it wrapped around his body with the same _intensity_ of only moments before. 

“Ah,” Rashid said. There was blood on his face from where Altair had struck him. He rubbed it between his fingers and then spread it across Altair’s face and pushed it across his lip and into his mouth. “It is too late to make amends now, Altair. Your brothers are no more. Soon you will join them.”

Even as he spoke, there seemed to be something trying to needle Altair into speaking, to bowing his head in reverence that he didn’t feel (even in the slightest). He grit his teeth until the pain of it passed and the pressure eased. 

“I did not wish to kill you,” Rashid said. But the dismissive motion of his hand that dropped Altair to his knees did not echo his words. A waver in the air around them made Altair’s head pound—another illusion was crowding out reality—but the sharp edge of a sword against his neck was _cold_ and _solid_. “You _were_ my finest weapon. I only had to sharpen your resolve and turn you toward a goal. I would have welcomed you if you had returned to me. I would have forgiven you.” The sword slid down across his chest, slicing a shallow line into his flesh beneath the layers of his clothes. “If you had not allowed yourself to be taken by such a low man. What would he think of you now? On your knees in supplication before me? You failed to save his brother and you have failed to save his child.”

Altair managed to tip his head up to look at Rashid—whether of his own will or because he was _allowed_ to look at the face of his killer. “Kill me if you are going to. I tire of listening to your impotent rambling.”

Neither of them saw the throwing knife before it struck Rashid in the neck. It went deep enough to cause him a scream of alarm, to jerk his body out of its stance and cause his hand to loosen on the glowing apple in such a way that the blackness he’d made from it shattered. 

Malik’s voice was a war-cry from over his head. Altair could only barely see him through the fog of shadows. But he heard the sound of his feet and the rush of other voices at his back. 

The apple fell with a splatter of blood and Altair looked at the second knife lodged through Rashid’s fist. Altair-was-smiling and Rashid’s face went red-and-spotty with rage-and-shame at sudden _failure_. The smugness of his assumed godhood was shattering the mask of superiority that had held his face locked in a constant glow of _victory_. The old man turned only enough toward the sound of Malik’s approach to be half-facing him when Malik drove the long-thin-knife he carried into the soft flesh just between the rise of the belt Rashid wore and the bottom of his ribs. 

Altair was on his unsteady feet in the next instant, one hand grasping at the sleeve of Rashid’s long robe to steady himself as he thrust his own blade into the man’s soft abdomen. His robes-and-skin-and-flesh tore _easily_. Every part of Altair was soured with sweat-and-ragged pain, the full reality of his injuries coming suddenly in the forefront of his mind now that the fear of death had passed.

Rashid’s eyes were wide-and-water as they looked at him. His mouth was open in shock with a thin red spittle floating across his tongue. He looked down at the blades that had been driven through him and then at Malik’s face. Rashid’s hand pushed at Malik as if he meant to deny the man the right to take his life but there was not strength enough in his body to manage it.

“I live,” Altair said. “I am free. You have not taken that from me.”

Rashid’s mouth moved and some sound tried to rattle free from his fluttering cheeks but Malik pulled his knife free and thrust it up through the bottom of his wrinkled chin. The blood-soaked blade tore through his tongue and the only sound Rashid could make was a wet sound of pain. He fell as his legs gave out under him. Altair let him fall, barely managed to release the hold he had on Rashid’s sleeve before it dragged him down. 

“Altair,” Malik said in the very next moment. His arm was curving around Altair’s chest, pressing him straight up again as he looked at his face. There was blood on Malik’s mouth, a bruise across his cheek that had not been there before. His clothing was split open in the front by a thin gash that had bled only enough to pink his clothes. 

Altair touched his chest as the pain set somewhere around his hips started contracting like _ripping_ him from the inside out. A flicker of light drew his attention away from the unexplained wound on Malik’s chest. The Apple was laying on the ground, shimmering in the sunlight.

“It should be destroyed,” Malik said.

“Not yet,” Altair said. His head starting to fill with air. The sounds of many bodies all around him did not make sense. The pain was _immense_ and his limbs felt incompetent to manage the effort of keeping him upright. “Robert will not rest until he has seen it again.”

“Then we will kill—Altair!”

But the world went black.

\--&\--

When Altair’s body gave, the weight of his sudden collapse knocked them both to the ground. Malik kept his arm around the man’s body as best as he could manage and directed their fall so that it was his back that hit the unforgiving stones and not the length of Altair’s already battered body.

Aaron’s shout of disbelief was a mad dash of feet to their side and his bony knees hitting the ground. His hands were pressing here and there on Altair’s limp body looking for some wound that he would not find. Mary came after him, dragged him up and away, pushed the boy back. “Control yourself.”

Malik rolled and laid Altair out next to him. He touched his face—slick with sweat—and his neck where his pulse was quickened by pain. “Help me,” he said to Mary, to the others. “There are surgeons here. They will—”

“He will not thank you for allowing them near him now,” Mary said. She crouched down next to them. “Your brothers watch now.” She nodded over toward the gate and the press of many confused faces staring in through the metal. 

There was truth in her words that was numbing against the rising tide of confused _panic_. He looked at the Apple laying dull-and-gold next to the body of the former mentor of the brotherhood. His knife lodged in the man’s jaw. So he let a breath out through his nose and said, “help him, however you can.” 

When Malik stood, he stopped only long enough to pick up the Apple and held it loosely—cold and useless—in his fist. “Rashid betrayed us,” he said to the many faces of his brothers. It seemed so very small in comparison to the depth of the betrayal. It did not seem _large_ enough to encompass the fear-and-pain-and-confusion on the faces of his many brothers. 

It could not contain enough _meaning_ to make sense of the three _boys_ Malik had been forced to kill when they would not relent their attacks against him. Their corpses laid in the dirt not so far from where they stood now.

“Round up our dead,” Malik said to them. “There may still be a fight coming.” 

\--

The afternoon was spent in the attempt to calculate the damage done. Malik was weary long before he was finished. He summoned the men of the highest ranks, the scholars and the master assassins that still lived in Masyaf. 

Malik told them everything he knew, everything that had happened, and waited for their words of wisdom and direction. But they were old men, pink with shame, that had not seen Rashid for what he was. 

“Robert De Sable may be marching toward us with an army,” Malik said when they could agree on no course of action. “Rest only as long as you must and begin preparations to meet his force.” He expected rebuttal and denial—perhaps one or many of them to tell him that he was no man’s leader, but they were only grateful for direction. The grayness of their recent ordeal still robbed them of vital energy and they went away—obedient little servants to do his will. 

Malik grabbed the Apple from where he had set it down hours ago; he carried it with him as he went to find Altair and his novices.

\--

While Mary denied to admit a surgeon to the room she (and the other novices) had found to house Altair, she had accepted his advice and administered pain medication that kept Altair in a foggy sleep long after he might have attempted to wake and move. The worst of the bloody affair had passed (so Mary said). It was certain that the child had been lost.

Malik had no time to consider it. He had no time to mourn the smallest of Rashid’s victims. He was _exhausted_ when he finally came to sit at Altair’s bedside. The man slept with unnatural stillness, his face lax from the drugs that kept him held under the cold grip of unconsciousness. Malik touched his hair, felt the heat of his still-living body, and pressed his forehead against Altair’s bare shoulder. 

He thought, perhaps, that he would cry. Not for the child that had been lost, but for the bitter relief that Altair’s still beating heart brought him. But he was too tired for even that.

\--

Morning came with a sharp-resounding intrusion and the hurried-hurried-breath of a thin-and-awkward novice that said, “Robert approaches!” before Malik could gather enough wits to issue a fitting rebuke. The boy’s face was pale with red spots and his breath was a desperate pant. Just behind him, Aaron stood with a clumsy knife in hand and wide-wide eyes of disbelief.

“Stay with him,” Malik said to Aaron. He got up and motioned the novice out. “How far away is he? How many are with him?”

“Close,” the novice said, “many.”


	30. Chapter 30

There was a weight holding him in place. It settled everywhere across his body, spreading out from the center of his chest until the very bones just under his skin felt impossibly heavy. Sleep was not a choice he made but simply the only thing of which he was capable.

\--

In his dream, Altair sat with the children that he had killed. The faceless, sexless, little bodies that ran in joyful circles around him. He could not move, but remained fixed in place on a carpet laid out across an endless green field. The voices of his dead children were a constant cacophony of sound going in circles-and-circles around him. He could see only enough of them to make out the brown of their hair and the blur of little hands as they dashed around-and-around him.

Altair had never dreamed of the children before. Their deaths (long before they were even able to draw a breath) had not troubled him. Two of them had died for the sins of their fathers and waged a painful vengeance on his body in their attempt to drag him into death after them.

It was only the third that he tried to make out in the motion of little bodies around him. The one that he had failed to protect. The only one that he had even tried to protect. If he had time to imagine what the child might have looked like, he thought he would have wanted it to look very much like Malik. 

He sat in his dream and picked out this-and-that for the child that was not. He built a son from the dirt, pulling together bit and pieces of his dream until everything stilled suddenly. It could only have been a fraction of a second that he sat and looked at the boy standing in front of him. Dreams were inconstant, changeable nonsense, but for one second he thought he saw the face of Malik’s son. The droll disdain on his pink lips, the softness of his child’s cheeks and the brightness of _knowing_ in his eyes. They were not Malik’s eyes. They were not dark enough to mirror this boy’s father but a disastrous lighter brown that seemed almost golden in the few, fractional seconds Altair managed to keep the image from fading.

Altair did not apologize to the boy, he did not try to touch him, but memorized this image of what he might have been. When the dream tilted (as dreams did) he found himself walking forward toward the distant sound of chaos.

\--

The world—a distant, foggy imagining of his lagging senses—did not snap into immediate focus. It came in degrees, the smell of water left sitting too long. The tinge of blood still caught in the air. The ache in his limbs that came from a dangerous loss of blood. There were other pains in his body: bruises along his ribs, set into his gut and here-and-there across his thighs. The stitches on his hand were itching. 

Altair’s mouth was dry. He could not compel his tongue to lick his lips. This aggravation is what pulled him out of the soupy-grayness. It took an eternity to force energy enough into his limbs to open his eyes and pull himself up to sitting. By the time he’d managed the feat, the sound of chaos from beyond the stone walls had grown immense. 

Aaron was standing in the doorway, half-in-but-half-out as he looked toward the sound. His slight body was rigid with fear and anxiety. Yet, he did not react to sound Altair made in his many unsuccessful attempts to stand. 

It took once-twice-six-seven-nine times before he was on his feet. There were clothes sitting a pile (for him surely) and a sticky pinkness to his skin where someone must have tried to wash him clean of the evidence of the miscarriage. His belly was mottled with bruises, his sides blackened by deep bruises that hurt when he bent and picked up his clothing. “Aaron,” he said. His head was spinning around-and-around. 

“Altair!” Aaron shouted. Even his voice and the sight of him wavered in and out. “You should not be up.”

Altair pushed him back before he could get close enough to try and touch him. He looked for his weapons even before he’d finished dressing and found them waiting for him not far from his bed. “Is there something to eat?” he asked.

For a moment the question seemed to stump his smallest novice. Then the boy went out through the door and brought back a dish with cold meat in it. “Mary said you would need it,” he said when he offered it Altair. 

He could not take the dish while he dressed but he took several pieces of the meat and pushed them into his mouth. They were cold and hard to chew with any speed. His stomach was not pleased by his attempts to force energy back into his lagging body. It took minutes (not seconds) to even get his loose and sluggish arms into his sleeves. “Where is Malik?” he asked when he had at least the first layer of clothing on. He grabbed more of the meat and pushed it into his mouth. The spinning inside of his skull did not ease with any immediacy but he was able to keep himself from falling over, at least. “Aaron,” he yelled at the boy when his question was not met with an immediate answer. “Tell me where Malik is.”

“Robert De Sable is attacking Masyaf,” Aaron said in a voice far too small. “It has been many hours. Malik has been gone since it before it began and I have heard nothing. Mary came to tell me to stay with you and to give you this if you woke up. Then she left again. I can smell fire, I can hear the shouting of many people. I do not know what is happening.”

Altair finished dressing and scooped the last of the meat into his mouth with one hand. “Bring me my things.” 

“You cannot fight!” Aaron protested. “You were nearly dead!”

Altair ignored the stupidity of that statement in favor of arming himself. “Where did Malik put the Apple?” The fog inside of his head had not lifted, the dizziness had not fully passed. But his heart was pounding fast-and-faster inside of his chest. The numbed and exhausted parts of his body were tingling with a sudden surge of energy. 

It would not last long.

“Here,” Aaron said as he picked up a poor sack with the golden ball inside. Absent a master, the Apple was nothing but a dull piece of gold. Altair took it from him and secured it to the belt at his waist. “What do you mean to do?”

“Whatever I am able to do,” Altair said. 

\--

Outside, the courtyard and garden of the castle were full of bodies, the cringing bodies of the bloody civilians that had been rescued from the castle. The uncertain bodies of the lower level assassins waiting for someone to give them orders. The barren women and the surgeons were running here-and-there through the crowds with blood splattered clothing and inadequate bandages.

There was no man among them that looked familiar to Altair. No one that he could remember at a glance. But the sound of fighting drew up out-and-up. He ran (did not walk) up-and-up until he had a clear view of the bloody battle waging just beyond the closed gate of the castle. The army that opposed them was made of Templars and nothing more.

(Robert had not been so successful in his attempts at uniting men as he expected to be, then.)

It was impossible to find one man among the many, even less possible to find Malik. The sound of steel-on-steel was deafening to hear. Altair worked his way around until he found a way to climb down the outside of the wall and hit the ground in time with the pained cry of a man being cleaved nearly in two by the well-placed strike of a blade. He drew his own sword as he turned to face the fight. Robert was hidden in the mass of bodies.

The energy in his body would not last him long enough to cut a path (and there was no telling where Malik had gone). It was not desperation that pulled the Apple from his pocket but a recklessness that bordered on stupidity. He clenched his fist around it as the gold began to _glow_ and felt the hum of power rush up his arm. This power had driven Rashid to insanity. For a moment, Altair thought he could have done anything with such power. 

It curled up inside of his head as he watched the abrasive clash of swords and the grunts of so many men fighting for their survival. His brothers had hardly had time to recover from what Rashid had done to them before they must have been thrust into this fight. They moved as if they were made of wood and Altair thought, _I could fix that_ and it was such a _powerful_ thought that his whole arm seemed to seize up in preparation of enforcing his whim.

“Robert,” he said against the thoughts and the pervasive strength of the unknown thing he held in his hand. His purpose was only to find the man and to bring an end to this fight. His eyes _burned_ for a moment and then the whole world dimmed to a gray-color. The color he could see clearly was _red_ to mark his enemies. A glint of light drew his attention from the ground: a path marked in sunshine-gold.

Altair kept his hand tight around the Apple and followed the path laid out before him. A man (a hideous blinding blur of red) knocked him off the path and the world burst into full color before him in a way that left him momentarily paralyzed. The second (or two) it took him to respond to the man’s impact against him gave the Templar enough time to raise his own sword in attack. Instinct (not conscious thought) guided his motions as he righted himself and ducked out of the way of the attack before countering it. He did succeed in killing the Templar but one of his brothers was there in the next instant to finish what he could not.

Altair tightened his hand around the Apple once more and closed his eyes as the color drained from the world. 

\--

The trail took him down the sloping inclines that led to the castle and out into the village. Altair had broken through the last skirmishes of the fight long ago and crept across the rooftops to hide is advance. There was a separate force waiting in the village, men in white with bright-red-crosses on their uniforms. Their gleaming metal heads bobbing around as they spoke rudely to the civilians they had taken prisoner.

Altair tucked the Apple into its pocket. The world came back into vivid colors: brown and red and green. He looked at the circle of men standing around a dozen or so prisoners. There were more lined up on their knees. Assassins no older than sixteen or seventeen, one or two men from the village that must have fought back and Mary. Mary with blood sprayed across her clothes and face that sat on her knees and stared without fear back at the men who walked back-and-forth in front of them.

Robert came from a small house with a grim frown on his face. He shouted an order that the prisoners be taken up the hill toward the fighting. The Templars with rough hands and gleaming metal heads yanked and pulled at the captured warriors. 

Altair jumped off the rooftop he had been crouching on. “Robert!” he shouted.

For a moment, Robert seemed confused by who had spoken to him. When he saw Altair—at last—he either did not recognize him as separate from the whole of the assassin order or he simply had no reason to care. “A single man?” Robert said with his arm motioning at Altair. His laugh was abrasive and cutting. “Your brothers fall to my men and you think to make a name for yourself with this foolishness?” He motioned his men toward Altair.

“I have the treasure you seek,” Altair said before the men could reach him. 

Robert stayed his force. “Such a noble brotherhood so full of traitors. Give it to me and I will spare your life.”

Altair pushed his hood back off his head. “I will give it to you if you defeat me.”

If possible, Robert looked _bored_ by the very idea. He drew his sword as he stepped closer. A flicker of recognition crossed his face when he was close enough to see Altair clearly. A smile crossed his face as he paused just beyond easy striking distance. “You were meant to be a gift to me.” He made a show of laughing at the notion in front of the others. “I see that I should have had you while I had the chance. You came very well recommended.”

“I did not come to trade words with you,” Altair said. “I have come to kill you as I have killed all of the men who discovered the treasure.”

“Then come,” Robert said. He did not advance but motion for half-a-dozen men to surround Altair. They drew their swords as they took their places around them. “Let us see the weapon Rashid boasted about.”

\--&\--

Malik was directing the attack against the Templars from inside. It was not his choice to hide behind the safety of the stone but the task he had been saddled with after it became clear the men who had so recently been stripped of their free will had neither the initiative nor the means to make choices. 

He had sent men to collect as many of the villagers as they could manage before Robert’s force reached it. They had come with haste and fear, reminded of the attack that had come not-so-long-ago. He had sent scouts to count the number of their enemy and he had stood at the front of the castle and watched Robert march up the hill with his men fanned out around him to look like a force far greater than it was.

The decision to fight Robert’s men head-on was a result of the unhappy realization that he did not have the stores to withstand a siege. The assassins were crippled by a lack of will but they were still strong and able. Robert’s force was meager in number compared to the well-armed and well-trained men that Malik had to command. So he sent them out to defend Masyaf while he kept the master assassins inside to plot an attempt on finding Robert where he had taken refuge in the village.

\--

Aaron came with frightened-quick-footsteps, skidding across the stones bearing nothing (not even a weapon). “Altair went to find you!” he shouted. “I saw him go over the wall. I did not know you were here.”

“When?” Malik demanded. He grabbed his sword from where it had been balanced against the edge of the table. There was not time to wait for an answer; he was already moving out toward the wall. 

“Almost an hour,” Aaron said from behind him. “He took the treasure.”

Malik ran.

\--

The blood of the dead soaked the ground. It made the dirt slippery beneath his boots. The crush of bodies had thinned since the last time he had looked out at it but moving through the flash of gray-and-white was time-consuming. Malik did not fit easily between the gaps in the fight but had to circumvent the fighting by taking a longer path that had him making wide circles again and again. 

“Malik!” Rauf yelled after him. He was bleeding from a wound on his chest, ragged from the exhausting fight with a distinct grayness still on his face from the day before. 

Malik could not spare the time to explain himself. “To the village!” he shouted. He did not pause in running but the addition of many feet following after him brought a sense of urgency to his motions. It felt as if he could not move fast enough to satisfy the terror in his heart. 

\--

Briefly, one-or-two beats, Malik’s heart had simply stopped. Dread had paired with shock and the combination had halted his heart and his breath. Everything in the world was in focus so sharply that the combined sound of everything crystallized into a single piercing sound.

The bald ground was _red_ with blood, mottled with the bodies of the fallen dead and churned up by the effort of a long battle. There were dozens and dozens of bodies. Men-and-women, a child’s limp body lying face-down in a puddle of its own blood. 

Templars lay with gaping wounds and ripped out throats. A handful of assassins were still fighting the one-or-two Templars that had not yet succumbed to inevitable failure. Mary sitting in the dirt holding a torn end of her clothing over a wound across her shoulder.

In the center of the chaos, Altair was on his knees with both of his hands wrapped loosely around the hilt of his sword and his head hanging forward. His whole body seemed to be wilting downward, pulled by the inexorable, terrible weight of gravity. He had pinned Robert to the ground and the man was still choking on blood with one-two hands gripping at the sword that pierced his chest. 

Malik did not drop his own sword but he thought he heard something clatter as he ran forward. His feet slid in the bloody dirt and he fell, lost his grip on his weapon and had to scramble back up to his feet again. When he was standing, Altair was looking over his shoulder at him. The blood spread across his face was like an obscene red mask. Malik thought he had seen every hateful stare the man was capable of making but he had never seen such naked hostility in Altair’s face before that moment.

His very expression was an assault that the following sudden sharpness of motion seemed capable of following through with. Altair was on his feet with his sword pulled free of Robert’s body in an instant.

Malik was getting back on his feet so completely overwhelmed with _relief_ that it seemed only a minor detail that the battle had not yet been brought to an official close. Robert’s death did not guarantee the surrender of his men. It should have mattered that his brothers (men he sent to die) were still in danger and yet it did not.

Altair did not drop but throw his sword to the ground as he crossed the distance between them with one-two-long strides. His hands were hot with blood when the pressed against Malik’s face and pulled him forward. Altair’s body was solid-but-trembling when he kissed Malik with such _force_. The hands on his face were tight but brief, Altair’s right arm went around his shoulders. Malik kissed him back with his right hand pushing through his blood-sticky hair. 

“I’m going to collapse,” Altair said in the half second before his legs gave out. Malik fisted a hand in the back of his clothes to keep him from hitting the ground and Altair’s arm around his shoulder tightened just enough for them to manage not falling. “Kill them all,” Altair said when he looked at the last of Robert’s men that had surrendered in the wake of finding their leader dead. “Spare none. The world will not suffer for lack of men capable of what these have done.”

Malik nodded his head and called Rauf forward to give him the orders. 

\--

Peace did not come to Masyaf. The dead had to be disposed of before any man could rest. The villagers and the novices that had been spared the bloody fight were sent to tend to the burial and disposal of the bodies. 

It took many days and many men working in shifts to clear the bodies and begin work on repairing the damage the invasion had caused. Malik—who had never wished to be the leader of the brotherhood—was exhausted with the effort of holding his tongue and issuing orders that seemed like _common sense_ but were treated like revered words of wisdom. He wanted no part of the endless parade of needs that were brought before him but he could not refuse the confused men that came to him looking for an explanation for what had happened.

He told them: 

_Rashid betrayed us_.

And, in equal measure:

_Altair saved us._

\--

“I have heard what you are telling the men,” Altair told him when he was finally released from the confines of his bed. Following his stunning display of stupidity (bravery and ultimately victorious heroism), his novices had taken turns keeping him confined in bed. It had been two days since the two of them had (kissed or had) the chance to speak to one another. Malik had fallen asleep at the desk he had unhappily been forced to assume for the interim. Altair had been a prisoner in a different bed.

Malik sat up from the unexpected nap he had fallen into, pulled the bit of parchment stuck to his cheek loose and dropped it on the desk again. There was a strain in his neck from sorting out the excessive stack of papers that Rashid had left behind. “Did I say something that was not true?” he asked.

Altair was wearing white again, the robes of a master assassin, but he was not armed. His hair was damp—perhaps he had taken the time to take a proper bath—as he stepped closer to the desk. “I did not save our brotherhood alone. There were many that secured our victory.”

That point was hardly worth arguing. Malik stood and stretched—felt foul with odor, lack of sleep and the burden of responsibility. He walked around the massive desk and did not make it fully free from it. “You have been reinstated,” Malik said. “You are an assassin again.”

Altair’s face was stone as he inclined his head in acknowledgement. “You have been busy while I have been asleep. I was an outcast and a disgrace only two days ago. I woke up to find my rank restored and my heroics spreading around Masyaf. A man stopped me on my way to speak to you and thanked me for saving us. I do not know his name but I recall his voice and his face as one of many who thought I had no place in a _brotherhood_. What else have you done in this time?”

Malik could have listed for him the every decision he’d been asked to make. He could have told him of how he had to send correspondence to the bureaus telling them what had happened. Perhaps he could have said how he’d sent a new Rafiq to take his post in Jerusalem at the urging of Nidal and the other informants that had rode back to their city. Malik might have told him about the burden of burying their brothers. 

“I mean to ask about the state of our marriage,” Altair said bluntly. There was no telling by his face if he wished it to be invalidated or upheld and without some idea of what Altair wanted, Malik could not think of a decent response. 

“I have done nothing,” Malik said. 

Again, Altair nodded. He looked at the spread of work across the desk and then back at Malik. “Have you been appointed our new mentor?”

Not if he could escape the fate. “It seems that in absence of other volunteers I have been elected. I believe that as our brothers become more confident in their own minds, they will develop a better opinion about who they want to lead them. For now, someone must make choices.” He looked out over the coming and going of the castle. 

“Perhaps you should stop filling their heads with stories of me or they might think I am a fit leader for them.” Altair picked up a letter from Damascus and dropped it again. The motion seemed too wistful to belong to the man who made it. 

“That would be a terrible fate indeed,” Malik said. “I imagine our brotherhood would soon perish under your command.” 

Altair was not exactly smiling when he looked at him out of the corner of his eyes but there was a definite lilt of amusement to his lips. After a pause, he turned his body to face Malik’s. “What of our marriage?”

Malik pulled the bit of scarf out of the collar of his clothes. He had kept it tucked into a pouch on his belt for many days and tucked into the neckline of his clothing for many hours waiting for Altair to find him. He held it out to him. “We are married or not married depending on what suits you.”

For a moment, Altair did not move to take the scarf from him. When he did, he dropped it almost immediately on the desk as if it were nothing to him. His tongue slid across his lips as he took a step forward. “I have found myself on the brink of death many times in my life,” he said. “I have never been afraid. Robert might have killed me. I was outmatched. He was physically stronger and more agile than I was when we fought. His sole mistake was in imagining what he might do to you when I failed. I could not find the strength to kill him for my own life. I could not stand the thought of allowing him to harm you.”

Malik let out a breath and tried to imagine what to say to such words. It put context to the desperation in the kiss they had shared. It gave his whole body a terrible shudder of _hope_ that even his reflexive tendency toward severe realism could not crush. 

“Yet, I failed you. I could not protect your son. I did not give Rashid the satisfaction of begging for the life of the child. I am incapable of giving you what you deserve. I cannot give you the affection you crave. I do not know if that will ever change. I will not hold you when there are others that would better serve you.” Altair stopped there a moment. “But I do not want to let you go.”

“Humility does not suit you,” Malik said. He touched Altair’s chest with a touch acutely aware of the dubious nature of its welcome. There were things he meant to say. A great many words that he had thought in the brief slips of time between the many things he had been forced into attending to in absence of a proper leader. Perhaps, given enough time, he could have found a way to put voice to his thoughts. 

Altair kissed him again. It was an experience wholly removed from the bloody need shared before. His hands were soft and unsure resting on Malik’s shoulders but the press of his lips was _absolute_. They were nearly equal in height but Altair still managed to tuck Malik in against his body in a way that made him feel small. He did not kiss with the meek acceptance of an omega. 

Malik tightened his hand in Altair’s clothes to keep him in place and might have tried to drag him around a blind corner to satisfy the sudden intensity of desire he had for this man. It took every measure of self-control he’d ever possessed to allow Altair to pull away from him (even if only by a few spare inches). 

“I have to finish what Rashid started. None should live that know of the treasure. When they are dead, I will return to you.” He licked his lips and put space between their bodies before the approaching men could find them in such an intimate position. Altair was already leaving before the men arrived.

Malik gave his attention to the men that came with new questions.

\--

That night was (perhaps) the first night that he managed to leave the desk and find the comfort of a real bed. He accepted food from Mary who had brought to him with an unhappy frown and thrust it in his direction.

“I have been instructed to keep you from depriving yourself of food and rest. I assure you I am as displeased by this as you will be.” It seemed a particularly terrible brand of meanness that had Altair pair Mary (who bore the obvious scars of the abuse at the hand of a husband) with him. Malik thanked her but she did not acknowledge him beyond a dismissive gesture of her hand. 

He went to bed with the unfulfilled longing for Altair still knocking around his body. Sleep did not come easily (or at all) but a persistent ache in his chest that was matched only by the reoccurring _desire_ that tried again and again to entice him. Every sound he heard brought the pathetic and unanswered hope that Altair had not left already. Yet, the night passed and the morning came and he still woke up alone.

\--

A month passed at Masyaf. Malik restored order to the disaster that had been made of the administrative portion of the brotherhood. He kept as many of the brothers in Masyaf as he could manage without forsaking important missions and ongoing commitments. He delegated the task of restoring order and good health to men he trusted.

He focused his attention on the foundation of the brotherhood in hopes that whoever took over his post would be able to build upon it. Malik’s own meager attempts seemed insufficient but he persisted. 

\--

Altair returned to him after dark, sneaking into his room with a conspicuous shuffle of feet and a clatter of weapons being set down with purposeful gracelessness. He lit a lamp if only to assure himself that he’d found the right bed and stripped out of his clothes that were dirty with travel and invited himself into Malik’s bed. 

“It is good you have returned,” Malik said, “The men have begun to talk of how they would prefer a fearless hero to lead them. I feared a coup would arise before you returned. I feared for my life.”

There was no answer to his attempt to prod a reaction out of Altair. Instead, Altair said, “you will tell me about it in the morning.” Then he was pulling Malik into the middle of the bed. “I expected a different welcome,” as he worked to rid Malik of what few clothes he had chosen to sleep in. Altair was a welcome weight over him even smelling like too many days on a horse. 

“That I can also manage.” Malik reached up to hook a hand around his neck and pulled him down to kiss him and Altair smiled just before their mouths met.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone that came to read my story, left kudos or comments or nothing at all. This has been a long journey and you have all really inspired me to keep going when it was tough. Incidentally, real life has been shit for the past few months and some of your comments and encouragements have been incredible bright spots of joy for me. 
> 
> This epilogue is a very small, hopefully enjoyable, apology for the awful things this story has done.

Altair’s days ended-and-began the same. Long before he escaped his bed and put on the robes of his position, there was the interruptive sob of his daughter pulling him from sleep. Her cries were soft hiccups of denied rage the way her still fat little hands slapped at his chest in anger for having been denied access to her breakfast. Some mornings, he woke first and quickly enough to keep Jaida from waking her father and brother but, late nights spent away from his bed were frequent. Malik did not often wake fully but only enough to roll over on his side of the bed, reach across the space between them and abruptly pull the blanket off Altair’s chest. 

Jaida could manage once the main obstacle was removed, she rooted around in the dark until her slick mouth found its target. Altair stroked the soft fluff of her dark hair while she happily (and with ravenous hunger) enjoyed her breakfast. When she was full, she slept with her face pillowed on her fat little hands. Sometimes, when there was not unfinished work waiting for him, Altair went back to sleep. Most of the time, tucked his daughter back in next to her father and got to his feet.

Tazim was always eager to follow him out of the rooms. His quick little feet swift across the cool stones as they made their way out to the practice yard before it was overtaken by the novices being called out for the first lessons of the day. Altair did not slow his stride for the benefit of the boy, the boy ran to remain at his side.

\--

In the yard, Altair stretched the stiffness of long hours spent trapped behind a desk from his limbs. Tazim was quiet in observation, his face a perfect mirror of his father’s, as he imperfectly imitated each of Altair’s movements. The boy was barely four, already slim while others his age were still plump. They exercised until the sun crept above the horizon and the approaching sound of so many novices necessitated them leaving. 

Tazim didn’t like the novices, his hand slid into Altair’s when the rowdy boys came filing into the yard. They were all skinny boys with bright faces and loud voices. They had only just earned their very first weapons and were eager-and-ready to test them out. It must have seemed like an invading force to Tazim, because his fingers dug into Altair’s with pitiful pinched tightness until they were safe again inside of the castle. 

There were many women and men that attended the minute details of his life now. Ones to feed him, ones to wash his clothes and ones to look after his children when neither Malik nor he were capable of managing it. Many mornings, Altair took advantage of the food that was ready for him to eat. (He had been especially fond of it when he was pregnant with Jaida and ravenous with hunger.) Some mornings he stole a bit of bread and some hummus and carried Tazim up to the highest point that could be reached in the castle (from the inside). They sat together and ate as they watched the world wake up beneath them.

“Father said I can ride with him today,” Tazim said.

Malik had promised their son that he would take him out into the world beyond Masyaf but a recent escalation in the number of conflicts their brotherhood had become involved with had kept him unfortunately trapped. There had not been enough time to spare to even take the child a few minutes beyond the village. Malik suffered acute guilt over this (small, personal) failure and it had shown itself in the unnecessary permissiveness he employed with their son.

“Where will you go?” Altair asked. 

Considering he had carried this child in his own body and suffered through the trouble of labor and birth, he felt (a great deal of the time) as if they would remain perpetual strangers. Tazim was reserved in equal proportions to how loud and demanding his sister (already) was. His solemn face did not hide the intelligence he already possessed but his skittishness made it difficult to understand what he wanted. Altair could only do what he thought was best, and so he at first allowed and then encouraged Tazim to join him each morning. 

“Father says he has to inspect a safe house to be sure it is stocked properly. We may not be home to sleep in our bed tonight.” There was no indication in the child’s voice if that was a pleasing or intimidating notion.

“You must remember everything you see,” Altair said, “and make a report to me when you return.”

Tazim smiled (if only briefly) and nodded his head. “Yes, Mother.”

\--

Jaida was approaching death by starvation when Altair returned to her. She was a pink-faced child with Malik’s dark hair and confusingly unfamiliar features to make up her face. There was some talk that she looked like Altair’s mother (the truth of this claim he could not confirm or deny). A man had once asked Malik (in jest) if he was certain the fair-skinned girl was truly his daughter and Malik had answered it the question by breaking the man’s nose.

Malik was half-dressed for his day, sitting with an unimpressed expression fixed on his face (to hide his frustration at Jaida’s continued screaming) and a tipped over bowl of yet another breakfast Jaida refused to eat. When he heard Altair approach a look of gratitude crossed his face. “She may have died had you waited a moment longer,” he said. He curled his hand around Jaida’s small body (sitting on the table) to push her toward Altair even as her screaming turned to pleased yelps and her arms lifted up toward him. 

Tazim hugged his father with unashamed affection. His solemn face was a hopeful smile. “Are you ready?”

Malik ruffled his son’s hair and sent him to fetch his bag to take with them. Altair scooped up Jaida and she quieted only long enough to protest how she was being held too high to get at her second breakfast. Her impatient hands slapped at his clothes as her face crumpled into a look of such deep rage it was almost impossible not to find amusement in it. “I do not remember Tazim being so resistant.”

Altair turned the bowl back over and ran a finger through the now-cold contents. Jaida watched him with watery tears caught on her lashes. When he held his finger up to her mouth her lip stuck out and her shoulders quivered but she opened her mouth and let him put the food in her mouth. Almost immediately she reacted with deep disgust but most (not all) of the food went down her throat to her belly. “It is only you she does not like,” Altair said. It was a constant jest leftover from the awful pregnancy. Jaida had not been still the entire time Altair carried her save for when Malik’s hand was on him. He fed their daughter another bit of her unwanted breakfast and she tolerated it only because the torture would be followed with a chance at nursing. “Tazim says he does not expect you will be back tonight.”

“I thought he would enjoy spending a night away from the castle. I am taking Aaron with me. He is taking over the management of the safe houses.” Malik stood and finished pulling on his robe and fixing his clothing. He wiped a streak of food from his face (undoubtedly a gift from their petulant daughter) and came to stand next to him. The years had softened Altair’s dislike of being touched and love had endeared Malik to him. Yet, the polite distance that Malik allowed him before Altair invited him closer persisted as a necessary compromise. “Do not start a war before I return.”

Altair leaned toward him to kiss him (as that is what Malik wanted) but kept Jaida a safe distance away from Malik. The girl reared back when they were close and shouted a protest against her Father who often tried to feed her food in place of the milk she craved. (Perhaps the greatest damage done to the relationship between Father and daughter was the day Jaida had discovered Malik did not produce milk and that no amount of effort on her part would change that. Her rage had been a fabulous scream of outrage followed by chilly and constant disinterest in her Father as a whole.) “Do not start one while you are away,” Altair said.

\--

There were many things involved in running the brotherhood. Most of which had been successfully split between himself and Malik when it became clear that they had been (un)officially instated in place of Rashid. Malik handled the mundane administrative duties and Altair spent his time primarily on the training and deployment of the assassins. 

It had been six years since he began and many of the changes he had proposed and implemented had been met with disapproval if not outright attempts at revolt. Men with loose tongues and no sense had accused him of being weak. They had called him an emotional omega and tried in vain to convince Malik to overrule him.

Malik had only advised them to cool their anger and set aside their pride, then he sent them back to Altair. 

On the few days that Malik was not present to handle the many daily administrative tasks (or during the long days of late pregnancy when Altair was not as physically able as he wished), Altair found himself trapped behind a desk with a mountain of papers and an endless parade of men with important (but mundane) questions. 

\--

Inevitably, Jaida was crusted with filth by the end of the day. She had tolerated being held captive indoors but Altair abandoned his post when the air went stagnant around him. He made his way to the practice yard and set Jaida in the dirt to discover the joy of rocks and grass and creeping bugs. 

Perhaps he had been invited to join a demonstration. Perhaps he had assigned a few fearful novices to look after his daughter. Perhaps he had spent a moment watching the awkward-half-grown boys shuffling in a worried circle after his daughter as she crawled through the dirt and tried to eat the rocks and bugs she found. Their worried cries and general nervousness was nearly as satisfying to him as the decent workout he got from demonstrating counter-attacks for the better part of the afternoon.

Malik often bathed the children because Tazim had cried constantly every time Altair poured water on him when he was a baby. Malik had protested the temperature of the water and his chosen method of cleaning the boy. Altair had informed him if he did not agree that he could do it himself and Malik had taken over the task and never given it back.

When Malik was absent, Altair found a pot big enough to drop Jaida in and filled it with water that was lukewarm and let her splash in it. He scrubbed the dirt off her face with his fingers and rinsed the food and spit out of her hair. When she was clean and the water was filthy, he took her out and dressed her again. 

\--

The bed was empty without the many other bodies to fill it. Jaida played with the blanket while he watched her getting drowsy. “Sleep, little one,” he said when she yawned so expansively that it shook her whole body. Her fists rubbed her eyes and she protested his suggestion with a single cry. 

Altair pulled her over and laid her next to him. She curled, rubbed her face against his chest, and cried again for the injustice of being put to sleep. Her fingers were tiny pushing at him and he rubbed her back and hummed to her. 

\--&\--

They had not made it more than a few steps beyond Masyaf when Tazim twisted enough to look up at Malik’s face from where he was sitting pressed up against his chest with his tiny legs dangly loosely on either side. “Do you intend to have more babies?” 

This question, spoken with such urgency, clearly had been the cause of constant alarm in Tazim’s life. It must have been stuck in his throat for a long time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to spring free. It was not such an odd time to ask it, beyond the reach of the boy’s Mother and away from the men who had learned only through the liberal application of bloody noses, that one simply did not speak rudely about Altair or his decision to have children.

Aaron—riding not so far behind them—chuckled as discreetly as any man could be expect to.

“I do not think so,” Malik said. He had not expected Altair to offer him the chance at a second child after the first one’s birth had been such an ordeal. The stubborn fool had been in labor for hours by the time Malik found him and even after that discovery, Altair had bluntly and repeatedly refused assistance of any sort from anyone but Malik. They managed Tazim’s birth through luck, not skill. Altair had not directly forbidden him from even thinking of another child but his cold demeanor had been evidence enough that Malik should not expect to ever become a father again.

“I do not like Jaida,” Tazim said. “Why does Mother like her? She is mean and she screams.” He turned his head back to the front and rested his hands on the pommel. “It is too late to put her back now but I do not think we should have another.”

“Jaida is not mean,” Malik said.

Tazim, for all that he seemed incapable of speaking to his own mother, made noises nearly identical to Altair’s. The scoff that he employed most often, for instance, was a noise that might have come out of Altair’s throat just as easily as from Tazim’s. “She will not sleep, she will not eat, and she will not play unless it suits her! She wakes me up when I am sleeping. She throws _food_!”

Malik did not laugh at the boy because it would have hurt his feelings. He kept his smile small and hidden and spared a glance back at Aaron who was turning red with repressed laughter. Aaron pointed forward to indicate he meant to ride ahead and escape the hilarity of this conversation.

“You were not so different when you were a baby,” Malik said patiently. “Jaida will improve as she gets older.”

Tazim scoffed again. “She will need to improve a great deal.”

\--

This trip was far from a necessity. Aaron had made several trips with no supervision. He had learned how to assess the safe houses to see if they were well-stocked and still secure enough to advise the travelling assassins to use. Malik had joined in a routine check simply to alleviate himself of the guilt of having promised his son something he then could not deliver. (And to alleviate his guilt and anxiety about leaving Masyaf when there was still work to be done.)

Aaron had been advised that a great deal of their trip would be spent stopping at natural wonders like small mountains of earth, puddles of water and grass where Tazim could explore the small portion of the world he had not yet seen. 

“I cannot remember being a child. I do not imagine it was the same for me,” Aaron said. He sat with Malik while they watched Tazim chasing after some imagined (or real) animal that he had found in the grass. His delightful squeals echoed through the air until he got very quiet, balanced on his feet with his knees bent and his whole body tipped forward staring at something in the grass. 

“It was not the same for me,” Malik said. “Most of us know that we will be assassins one day. It is a fate that is given to us in our infancy. Altair disagrees with the practice. He says that by taking us from our families, it weakens us. So our son will be a boy for as long as we can manage it.”

Aaron nodded. “But he trains with Altair in the morning.”

Yes. One of the peculiar things they enjoyed together. Tazim had always stirred awake at his Mother’s leaving but when he was still much younger he had stayed in the room to worry at Malik about where Altair had gone and when he would return and what he must be doing. Malik required more sleep than either of them and (too) tired one morning to practice patience, he had snapped at the boy to follow his Mother if he was so interested in knowing. Tazim had immediately obeyed and had followed Altair out to train in the practice yard every morning since he was barely two years old. “That is not the same. Tazim does that because he wants to, not because he must.”

\--

They reached the safe house before dark despite the fact that the trip should not have taken more than an hour or two. Aaron made dinner while Malik listened to Tazim practice the report he planned to give to Altair upon his return.

There was a thought stuck in Malik’s head about Tazim’s perception of Altair. Malik remembered his own mother in detail, the sound of her voice and the touch of her hands. He remembered loving her with a force far greater and more permanent than he could have imagined loving anyone or anything. Altair had never had a mother to love and had not come to the decision to have children with any ease. While the man had persisted (for years) in the belief that he owed Malik a child, he had not spoken of how he wanted one for a very long time. Malik had refused him, many times, when Altair bluntly informed him that his fever was coming and they could have a child. First, to give Altair the time to properly heal after his previous traumas. Then because Altair thought he was obligated to provide a child. 

It was not until Altair asked him to have a child and admitted he wanted one that Malik agreed. Once the child was born, Altair was practical about caring for Tazim but he was not naturally inclined toward treating Tazim with any unnecessary affection. He would hold the boy—especially when Tazim was falling asleep—but it seemed reluctant at best. 

These early slights seemed to have a constant effect on Tazim’s ability to interact with Altair. He was quiet with his Mother. He was quick and obedient. It seemed as if he were always hovering just beyond touching distance. 

“Do you think your Mother prefers Jaida?” Malik asked. They were alone in the safe house and Tazim had reached a pausing point in his rambling report. Malik had been listening (intently) until he suddenly found himself blurting out a question that he had spent many months avoiding himself. 

It was not a fair question. Jaida was demanding by nature. Tazim had always been mild in comparison. Jaida preferred Altair above all others with a violent aversion to being coddled or soothed by anyone other than her Mother. Altair relented because they had failed in their many attempts to break Jaida of her red-faced insistence. The whole of Masyaf had suffered her screaming as it went on without end for hours and hours. Nothing would appease Jaida save for her Mother. 

“No,” Tazim said. “Mother loves me because I am not loud and mean. He shows me how to get strong and he steals bread from the kitchen and carries me to the roof. Mother kisses my forehead and holds my hand when I am scared.” Tazim frowned at the question. “Does Mother prefer Jaida?” 

“Jaida prefers your mother,” Malik said. “You do not have to be quiet. Your mother would love you even if you were loud.”

“Does that make you sad?” Tazim asked.

It was difficult to accept at times. Tazim had been loving from the start. A child that had sat with Malik for hours as he worked on the boring tasks of his office. One that had taken to snuggling in under his left arm as soon as he could move his own body well enough to manage it. Tazim had always loved him. Jaida would only accept him if he were assisting her in her constant mission to be closer to Altair. There were brief moments when she tolerated him (perhaps only when he was washing her at the end of the day) and very few moments when she seemed honestly pleased to see him. 

“Sometimes,” Malik said at last. “But she is only a baby.”

“She should stop,” Tazim advised him. “You should have no more. They will all be like Jaida.”

Malik nodded his understanding. Then he motioned that Tazim should continue telling him about the birds and the bugs and the rocks and the soil he had investigated.

\--

Returning to Masyaf was a far quicker trip. Tazim ran nearly the whole distance from the entrance of the village to the practice yard where they found Altair chastising a group of novices for being careless. He did not raise his voice but they were all slumping their shoulders in shame regardless.

Tazim went immediately to Altair’s side and caught his left hand by the pinkie finger. The action distracted Altair only a breath before he continued with his speech. Jaida was noticeably absent from the training circle and Malik let out a sigh as he looked around the dusty yard for where she had been deposited.

There was a group of older boys—on the verge of becoming men, even—that had been assigned to her. They had taken the precaution of sitting in a defensive circle around her with their legs out to create a barrier to halt her attempts to escape them. Jaida was amused by a rock too big to stick into her mouth and a fist packed with dirt that was smeared across her fat cheeks and mouth. One of the boys was moaning in unhappiness at the sight of it.

Malik walked over to them and stopped so that his shadow alerted them to his presence. They looked up at him guiltily with the look of boys that were sure to be punished for their failure. One or more of them might have even been on the verge of apologizing save for the quick thinking of one boy who jumped to his feet, scooped he girl up and offered her to Malik. “We are late to our lesson, Dai.” He bowed his head in respect before he ran as fast as he could with his brothers trailing gratefully behind him.

Jaida regarded him with mud on her tongue. 

“If you can eat dirt, you should be able to eat food.” He fixed his hold on her so that she clamped her knees around his chest and coiled her hand into his robe. In a rare moment of acceptance, she leaned forward to press her gaping-wet-filthy mouth against his cheek and then leaned back again with obvious pride at her accomplishment. “Thank you,” he said.

He glanced back at Altair to be sure that Tazim was still with him (and not causing trouble) before he took Jaida inside where there was less mud.

\--

It was approximately an hour before Altair found him. Jaida had gone from tolerant of Malik’s insistence on cleaning her face, to belligerent at having been forced to deal with him, to displeased at not having her Mother nearby to aggressively unhappy with hunger in that time. She sat in Malik’s lap with both of her hands yanking at his clothes and her wet-snotty face rubbing against him. 

“Come Jaida,” Altair said. He picked her up by one chubby arm and she went with a cry of gratitude. Tazim was hanging onto Altair’s other hand with his eyes bright and a smile stretching his cheeks out of shape. “I hope you find I did not do an inadequate job,” Altair said.

Tazim said, “I’m going to finish telling him what I saw.” Then he hurried after Altair.

\--

Malik only went to find his children after the slanting of the shadows across his desk alerted him to the alarming passage of time since he’d seen them last. His first guess was that they had been dropped off with the women who sometimes looked after them. When he found that was not the case, he checked in the kitchen and then finally went to their room. 

Tazim was asleep on his side with his fist pressed against his mouth. Altair was leaning back against the wall with a pillow braced behind his back and Jaida sleeping open-mouthed against his chest. Her fat little body was held in place by the sweat that was surely stuck between her and Altair’s bare skin. 

“I could not escape,” Altair said before Malik could comment. He brush his fingers through Tazim’s hair and then smoothed it down again. “He was still talking when he fell asleep.”

“Our son does not think we should have more. He believes they will be like his sister.”

Altair tipped his head back to look down at the beastly-little-child sleeping on him. “It would be best to avoid another like her.” But the affection in his voice at the worlds drained them of any meaning. “I missed you.”

“I was only gone a night,” Malik said. 

“I hardly noticed your absence,” Altair corrected. He leaned forward with deliberate slowness as he transferred Jaida from laying against his skin to lying next to her brother on their bed. She made a muffled noise of distress and then sighed evenly as she curled up in her sleep.

“She is sleeping soundly.” It was a rare occurrence for Jaida to do anything of the sort.

Altair got up with precise carefulness. His body contorting in such a way to keep from disturbing the children who rarely slept simultaneously. When he took a step it seemed as if he were certain it would wake them, and then another until he was at Malik’s side pushing him toward the door. Once they were in the hall beyond the still-open door, Altair kissed him with both of his hands working on pulling Malik’s clothes out of place. 

“We could not have done this inside?” Malik asked. 

“If you waste time with protests, we will not be able to do it at all,” Altair said. “Someone will come looking for us. One of the children will wake.” Altair kissed him as he pushed him down to sit with his back against the wall. They had made an art out of hurried trysts around corners in the castle. Altair’s appointment to mentor of the brotherhood had robbed them of time and what little they’d managed to keep for themselves had been given to their children. 

Altair kissed him with deliberate want as he stroked Malik to full hardness. When he’d managed it and Malik was biting moans into his lips, Altair smiled at him with the same pride and congratulations he used on the boys who were officially promoted to assassins. 

\--

Jaida woke up with a howl of bitter disappointment mere minutes after they’d finished. Altair had fixed their clothes and settled back in Malik’s lap but the sweat had not yet fully dried off their foreheads and the pleasant feeling of contentment that followed sex had not dissipated. Malik was greedy with his hand curved around Altair’s waist holding him place when he might have gone to answer the cries of their daughter. Her demands were frequently met.

Altair stayed a polite matter of seconds before he kissed Malik one last time. “We will take her to the village and leave her with Rana for a few hours. Tazim can play with the boys.”

“When?” Malik asked. 

“Soon,” Altair said. He kissed him again and got up to answer the shrill demands. Tazim’s voice was sleeping when he uttered a reproach at his sister about her awful behavior. He was frowning still when came out to glare at Malik for doing nothing to save him from Jaida’s awful wrath. 

“No more,” Tazim said to him. He flopped next to Malik and rested his head against his arm. Malik kissed his head and made him no promises.


End file.
